For adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with Hodgkin lymphoma, identifying and reducing barriers to recommended treatment and surveillance in those at higher risk of mortality is essential to lessening survival disparities, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.1
Researchers led by Theresa Keegan, MS, PhD, of the University of California Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center looked at data from 9353 AYA patients ages 15 to 39 years whose Hodgkin lymphoma was diagnosed from 1988 to 2011.
They used multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression in order to measure impact of sociodemographic characteristics, initial combined-modality treatment and subsequent cancers or survival.
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Over the 24 years observed, the study found that there were improvements in Hodgkin lymphoma-specific survival by diagnostic period and differences in survival by race/ethnicity, neighborhood SES, and health insurance for a subset of patients who were more recently diagnosed.
Upon multivariate analyses, Hodgkin lymphoma-specific survival was worse for black patients than white patients with early stage interval and late-stage disease, as well as for Hispanics compared with whites with late-stage disease.
AYA patients with early stage disease were found to experience worse survival if they also resided in lower SES neighborhoods. In addition, more AYA patients with a more recent diagnosis with public health insurance or who were uninsured were found to experience worse Hodgkin lymphoma-specific survival.
REFERENCE
1. Keegan TH, DeRouen MC, Parsons HM, et al. Impact of treatment and insurance on socioeconomic disparities in survival after adolescent and young adult Hodgkin lymphoma: a population-based study [published online ahead of print January 29, 2016]. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. doi:10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-15-0756.
