Asian and Black patients with lung cancer face longer wait times to radiation treatment

Asian and Black patients with lung cancer experienced longer delays to radiation treatment than their white counterparts, according to a new study.

Researchers pooled data from the U.S. National Cancer Database and sought to assess the prevalence and magnitude of racial disparities in the average time to radiation therapy for 222,715 patients with stage I, stage II and stage III Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving radiation across various treatment facilities.

The average time to radiation therapy was 62 days overall. Asian patients had the longest average time to radiation therapy (72 days), followed by Black patients (66 days) and White patients (61 days).

“Our findings shed light on the potential presence and impact of structural racism on patients seeking cancer treatment,” said Rajesh Balkrishnan, PhD (above), co-program director of population health and prevention sciences and director of the Cancer Control Core at University of Virginia Cancer Center.

• See “Asian, Black patients with lung cancer face longer wait times to radiation treatment” by Jennifer Southall on the Healio website (February 6, 2023)
• See the full text of the scientific paper “Racial and Treatment Center Differences on Time to Treatment Initiation for Nonsmall Cell Lung Cancer Patients Receiving Radiation Therapy As an Initial Treatment” by Akhil Rekulapelli et al.