Publication Date:
2008-11-16
Description:
Background: Little is known about ethnic disparities in survival among patients with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL), although these disparities have been documented for patients with many solid tumors. Methods: We studied a retrospective cohort of 13,321 patients diagnosed with incident NHL at age 〉=65 in 1992–1999, identified from the SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results)-Medicare linked database with 11 years of follow-up. Of these patients, 11,868 were Caucasians, 533 were African-Americans, and 920 were other ethnicities. A time-to-event Cox regression model was used to examine the relative risk of all-cause and disease-specific mortality. Results: A larger proportion (72.2%) of African-Americans were in the poorest quartile of socioeconomic status as measured by the poverty level compared to 21.8% of Caucasians, and 43.2% of African-Americans received chemotherapy compared to 52.4% of Caucasians (p
Print ISSN:
0006-4971
Electronic ISSN:
1528-0020
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
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