Racial disparities for uterine corpus tumors: changes in clinical characteristics and treatment over time.
BACKGROUND
Black women with endometrial cancer have been more likely to die than white patients. The authors examined factors associated with the poor outcome for black women with uterine corpus tumors and analyzed whether these characteristics have changed over time based on year of diagnosis.


METHODS
The authors examined women with uterine neoplasms recorded from 1988-2004 in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Database. The authors developed Cox proportional hazards models to examine the effect of race on survival and stratified women by year of diagnosis into 3 groups: 1988-1993, 1994-1998, 1999-2004.


RESULTS
A total of 80,915 patients including 5564 (7%) black women were identified. Black patients were significantly younger, had more advanced stage tumors, and had more aggressive, nonendometrioid histologic variants (P<.001). Black women were 60% more likely to die from their tumors than white women when matched for other prognostic variables (hazards ratio, 1.60; 95% confidence interval, 1.51-1.69). For each of the 3 time periods, survival was worse for blacks even when stratified by stage and histology. Over time, the incidence of serous and clear-cell tumors increased, and the use of radiation decreased for both races. Staging lymphadenectomy was performed more commonly in both blacks (45%) and whites (48%) who had been treated more recently.


CONCLUSIONS
Black women with uterine corpus tumors were more likely to die from their disease. This survival difference has persisted over time. The clinical characteristics of blacks and whites have remained relatively constant. The proportion of women who undergo surgical staging has increased with time and was well matched between races.
Wright
Jason D
JD
Division of Gynecologic Oncology, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY 10032, USA. jw2459@columbia.edu
Fiorelli
Jessica
J
Schiff
Peter B
PB
Burke
William M
WM
Kansler
Amanda L
AL
Cohen
Carmel J
CJ
Herzog
Thomas J
TJ
D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D054625:Healthcare Disparities / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D015996:Survival Rate / Q000639:trends; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014594:Uterine Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy; D044465:White People