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For Release: October 25, 2000
Black and White Patients Benefit Equally when Treated With Post-Lumpectomy Radiation Therapy
Black patients benefit as much as white patients do from post-lumpectomy radiation therapy despite a disproportionate number of factors that would seem to put them at a disadvantage, a new study shows.
A four-year-study found that while many black women presented with a higher-stage and node-positive disease, the local control and disease-free survival was excellent and equivalent to that of the white patients, according to Stuart Burri, M.D., Southeast Radiation Oncology Group in Charlotte, N.C. The disease-free survival for black patients was 90.3 percent compared to 91.7 percent for white women, he adds.
"The results of this study aren't inconsistent with previous findings, but it is somewhat surprising that the black patients fared as well as the white patients since they had several other factors against them, said Dr. Burri. "It was especially encouraging that at five years, local control and disease-free survival were statistically indistinguishable from one another."
Each of the 264 patients included in the study had the following in common: all had been diagnosed with breast cancer during a four-year time period at an academic referral center, a community hospital or an inner - city public hospital, which are all affiliated with the Emory University School of Medicine. Additionally, they were all diagnosed and treated by the attending physicians, and all had undergone a lumpectomy.
The median age of patients in the study was 55, which was not statistically significantly different between the two racial groups. While 62.9 percent of the patients were stage 1, black patients were more likely to present at a higher stage disease as well as being node-positive. Black patients were also more likely to undergo a re-excision as well as to have higher-grade disease. There was no statistical difference in estrogen receptor or progesterone receptor or final margin status.
The study was presented October 25, at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology annual meeting in Boston, MA.
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