Most Treatable Childhood Cancers Are Also Those With the Greatest Survival Disparity Among Minorities: Study

Minority children and teens are more likely to die from treatable cancers than white children and teens, according to the findings of a new study that highlights the racial disparity in the quality of medical care in the United States.

In a report published last week in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis evaluated data on more than 67,000 children and adolescents in the U.S., using data from the U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program. This included children and teens diagnosed from birth to 19 years with a first primary malignant cancer from January 2000 to December 2016.

The study analyzed survival rates for 103 different cancer types, and determined that black and Hispanic children were more likely to die from cancers that are easily treatable with medical intervention, including leukemia, neuroblastoma, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“The results suggest that there are modifiable racial and ethnic disparities in childhood cancer survival,” said Kim Johnson, associate professor and senior author of the study, in a press release issued by the university.

Poverty and socioeconomic status may account for some of the differences. Researchers said this may be because people with fewer resources may have a greater challenge getting a timely diagnosis or optimal treatment. Racial and ethnic differences in death rates among children and teens were similar to differences seen among adults in other studies.

State-of-the-art therapy and clinical trials are widely available to help treat cancers early. More people in the American population have access to health care now, and to better health care than in prior generations. However, some patients may experience differences in clinical trial enrollment, face barriers to accessing healthcare, and receive a later diagnosis. Socioeconomic disparities continue to be a fundamental cause of disease that can be avoided, the researchers determined.

Researchers emphasized a need for more research to identify and explain the factors that lead to the differences in cancer survival rates and how to reduce and eliminate those factors.

As childhood and adolescent treatments advance, efforts should be made to focus on promoting health equity by race and ethnicity among children with cancer, they wrote.

“Among children and adolescents, racial/ethnic disparities in cancer survival are well documented, particularly for those of African American and Hispanic descent,” Johnson said. “However, to our knowledge, no previous study has examined how these disparities compare for cancer types of varying survivability.”