Blacks Trail Whites in Receiving Early Surgery for Lung Cancer

African Americans are less likely than whites to receive surgery for early-stage lung cancer, a disparity that leads to a lower survival rate, researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center report in today’s New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Peter B. Bach and his colleagues analyzed data for nearly 11,000 Medicare patients over the age of 65 who were diagnosed with the most common form of lung cancer.

They found that 76.7% of white patients underwent surgery, compared with 64% of black patients. As a consequence, 34% of white patients were still alive five years after diagnosis, compared with 26% of blacks. Lung cancer kills an estimated 150,000 Americans each year. The researchers estimated that increasing the surgical rate among blacks to the same level as in whites could save the lives of 44 of every 1,000 patients.

Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II