Results of a new study show that black people tend to be more prone to die from cancer despite receiving the same medical care as other ethnicities.
The study looked at rates of death from breast, ovarian and prostate cancer and is the first to compare racial deaths from the disease when treatment is identical.
Researchers analyzed health records of more than 20,000 cancer patients who had previously participated in clinical trials.
Even when treated by the same doctor, the risk of an African American dying from cancer was greater than that of a white patient, but not for all cancers.
Oddly enough, the racial gap when it came to cancer deaths was not found in cancers including; colon, certain blood and skin cancers.
"It was a level playing field for everyone. So our findings cast doubt on a widely accepted theory that African-Americans' lower survival rates for certain cancers are solely due to such factors as poverty and poor access to quality healthcare," said lead author of the study Kathy Albain, a breast and lung cancer specialist at Loyola University's Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center.
一項新的研究結果表明,同樣的醫(yī)療條件下,黑人比其他人種更容易死于癌癥。
該研究統(tǒng)計了乳腺癌,卵巢癌和前列腺癌的死亡率,首次將不同種族在相同治療條件下的死亡率進行了比較。
研究人員分析了兩萬多名參加臨床試驗的癌癥患者的健康記錄。結果表明,即使是由同一位醫(yī)生治療,非洲裔美國病人死于癌癥的幾率要大于白種病人,但這并非適用于所有癌癥。奇怪的是,這種由于種族不同引起的差異并沒有在結腸癌,某些血癌和皮膚癌中發(fā)現(xiàn)。
Loyola大學的Cardinal Bernardin癌癥研究中心乳腺癌和肺癌癌癥專家Kathy Albain說,"過去我們曾認為,每個人在這場游戲中都是公平的。人們也一直相信,非洲裔美國人癌癥的存活率低完全是因為貧困和缺乏優(yōu)質(zhì)醫(yī)療而造成的。如今我們的研究對此提出了質(zhì)疑。"