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THURSDAY, Jan. 24, 2019 (HealthDay News) — The time to surgery (TTS) after a breast cancer diagnosis is delayed for non-Hispanic black (NHB) versus non-Hispanic white (NHW) women, according to a study published online Jan. 23 in JAMA Surgery<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Yvonne L. Eaglehouse, Ph.D., M.P.H., from the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues compared TTS among 998 NHB women and 3,899 NHW women who received a diagnosis of stages I to III breast cancer and underwent breast-conserving surgery or mastectomy in the U.S. Military Health System.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that the median TTS was 21 and 22 days among NHW and NHB women, respectively. At the 75th and 90th percentiles, NHB women had a significantly greater estimated TTS (3.6 and 8.9 days, respectively) than NHW women in multivariable models. Similar differences were seen by type of surgery. For patients receiving breast-conserving surgery, NHB women had a higher adjusted risk for death than NHW women (hazard ratio, 1.45; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.06 to 2.01); the risks for death were similar for NHB and NHW women receiving mastectomy (hazard ratio, 1.06; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.76 to 1.48). After adding TTS to the Cox proportional hazards regression models, the hazard ratios remained similar.<\/p>\n
“Future research on factors that influence surgical decisions, treatment delays, and short-term and long-term clinical outcomes is warranted to better understand racial disparities in breast cancer treatment and overall survival,” the authors write.<\/p>\n
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