Black women with a low-risk form of endometrial cancer were less likely than White women with the same cancer to have a hysterectomy, and less likely to survive their cancer in a review of over 23,000 cases.
“We’ve known for years that Black women with endometrial cancer have lower survival rates than white women, largely because they are more likely to have an aggressive subtype and to be diagnosed at an advanced stage,” said researcher Kristin Taylor, MD (above), of Cedars-Sinai. “But our study found this disparity persists even when we compare patients with the lowest-risk form diagnosed at the earliest possible stage.”
The earliest-stage, least-aggressive endometrial cancer, a type called stage 1A low-grade endometrioid endometrial carcinoma, accounts for about 80% of endometrial cancers. “For these patients, standard treatment is hysterectomy, and many should be cured without the need for radiation or chemotherapy,” according to Taylor.
“Some data suggest that there are different genetic pathways, even within this narrow subset of tumors, that could be driving disparities between outcomes in Black and White women. “We’re hoping to develop models in the lab derived from the tumors of Black and white women with this subtype of cancer to look for biologic differences that could help inform treatments for each population,” she says.
- See “Examining Race and Endometrial Cancer Outcomes” on the Cedars-Sinai website (August 31, 2023)
- See the abstract of the scientific paper “The association of black race with receipt of hysterectomy and survival in low-risk endometrial cancer” by Kristin N Taylor et al.
