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FRIDAY, Dec. 27, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Young, low-income patients with bone or soft tissue sarcomas have decreased overall survival (OS), regardless of disease stage at presentation, according to a study published online Dec. 15 in Cancer Medicine<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Neela L. Penumarthy, M.D., from Seattle Children’s Hospital, and colleagues used data from the University of California San Francisco Cancer Registry to identify patients aged 0 to 39 years diagnosed with bone or soft tissue sarcomas between 2000 and 2015. The analysis examined how public insurance influenced five-year OS among young patients.<\/p>\n
The researchers identified 1,106 patients, of whom 39 percent were classified as low-income (defined as no insurance or Medicaid). Low-income patients were more likely to be racial\/ethnic minorities and to present with metastatic disease (odds ratio, 1.96). OS was significantly worse among low-income patients (61 versus 71 percent). OS was independently predicted by age at diagnosis and extent of disease at diagnosis. Low-income patients consistently had significantly worse OS when stratified by extent of disease (localized: 78 versus 84 percent; regional: 64 versus 73 percent; metastatic: 23 versus 30 percent). Metastatic disease at diagnosis accounted for 15 percent of the effect of public insurance on OS.<\/p>\n
“It’s important that publicly insured patients are supported by concrete resources to maximize their opportunity for survival,” a coauthor said in a statement.<\/p>\n