PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Racial health inequality in prostate cancer associated with facility-level disparities

A retrospective research study found that specific hospital systems in the US are associated with worse prostate cancer treatment and outcomes for minority groups

2023-03-13
(Press-News.org) Racial minorities in the United States are less likely to receive treatment for prostate cancer and, overall, have worse survival outcomes compared to individuals who are white. Typically, patient-level and physician-level factors have been used to explain the racial and socioeconomic differences in prostate cancer disparities. However, a new study led by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, investigated the role of facilities themselves in relation to these disparities. Their results are published in Urologic Oncology.

“This study reveals crucial data regarding health disparities,” said senior author Quoc-Dien Trinh, MD, MBA, of the Division of Urological Surgery at the Brigham. “The importance of this research is to acknowledge the existence of differences across hospital systems and highlight the need for dedicating resources and support to affected health systems and improve care for all patients.”

Marginalized individuals often receive care in minority-serving hospitals and safety-net hospitals, where patients have been shown to have worse outcomes. In this study, these hospitals were grouped under the umbrella, hospital systems serving health disparity populations (HSDPs). HSDPs were further defined by the investigators as “facilities in the highest decile of proportion of non-Hispanic Black or Hispanic cancer patients−and/or high-burden safety-net hospitals−facilities in the highest quartile of proportion of underinsured patients.” Using these descriptions, the researchers analyzed data related to racial health outcomes in those specific locations.

The team conducted the study by using the National Cancer Database to retrospectively analyze patients from HSDPs and identify men with immediate-risk or high-risk of prostate cancer. They then calculated the time it took for these patients to receive treatment within 90 days, if people received treatment at all, and, subsequently, their overall rates of survival.

They found that for 822,000 men from 968 non-HSDPs and 373 HSDPs, treatment at HSDPs was associated with lower odds of receiving care within 90 days of diagnosis, lower odds of definitive treatment, and lower overall survival. However, among those who received definitive treatment, there did not appear to be a difference in overall survival. Lastly, non-Hispanic black men at HSDPs had worse outcomes than non-Hispanic white men treated at HSDPs and non-Hispanic black men at non-HSDPs. The racial disparities in the outcomes were mostly driven by facilities that were both high-burden safety-net hospitals and minority-serving hospitals. As a result, this data shows a compounding disadvantage for non-Hispanic Black men with prostate cancer since they are more likely to be treated at hospitals with worse outcomes (high-burden safety-net hospitals and minority-serving hospitals) and have worse outcomes than patients of other racial and ethnic groups at those same institutions.

One limitation in the study was that the cancer database that was used only included a specific group of accredited hospitals and also did not encompass all cancer diagnoses in the United States. Nevertheless the study does show that the site of care is greatly associated with health outcomes for minority populations. Future quantitative and qualitative studies will be needed to pinpoint exactly what hospital factors are causing such disparities and whether targeted initiatives at HSDPs may reduce racial disparities.

“The receipt of treatment can vary widely across institutions. We view access to treatment as a big driver of the disparities that we see,” said Trinh. “We need stakeholders to work together to tackle cancer disparities at a broad level rather than in separated hospital siloes. Just as importantly, we hope that patients who are part of racial minority groups are aware of their options to make the best health decisions for themselves. That’s why we have also created the Prostate Cancer Outreach Clinic at the Brigham, to specifically address the health needs of minority men.”

Funding: This project contributes to ongoing work funded by the American Cancer Society and Pfizer Inc.

Disclosures: Trinh reports personal fees from Astellas, Bayer, and Janssen outside the submitted work and research funding from the American Cancer Society, the Defense Health Agency, and Pfizer Global Medical Grants. Additional disclosures for co-authors can be found in the Urologic Oncology paper.

Paper cited: Nguyen, D et al. “Access to definitive treatment and survival for intermediate-risk and high-risk prostate cancer at hospital systems serving health disparity populations” Journal DOI: /10.1016/j.urolonc.2023.01.011.

END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Scientists develop new concepts about the shape and dynamic nature of molecules

2023-03-13
-With pictures- Scientists have demonstrated in a new study that carbon-based molecules can be much more dynamic than previously thought. When a carbon atom forms four bonds to different groups, the molecule can exist in two mirror image forms. These mirror image forms are vital in medicine because they have different biological activities. Usually, it is impossible to interconvert between these ‘enantiomers’ because to do so would require a bond to be broken, a process that needs too much energy. The researchers ...

Minke whales are as small as a lunge-feeding baleen whale can be

Minke whales are as small as a lunge-feeding baleen whale can be
2023-03-13
A new study of Antarctic minke whales reveals a minimum size limit for whales employing the highly efficient “lunge-feeding” strategy that enabled the blue whale to become the largest animal on Earth. Lunge feeding whales accelerate toward a patch of prey, engulf a huge volume of water, and then filter out the prey through the baleen plates in their mouths. This strategy is used by the largest group of baleen whales, known as rorquals, which includes blue, fin, humpback, and minke whales. The ability ...

UK scientists discover a new way to help prevent breast cancer ‘time bomb’

2023-03-13
Scientists have discovered why breast cancer cells that have spread to the lungs may ‘wake up’ following years of sleep - forming incurable secondary tumours. Their research, funded by Breast Cancer Now, reveals the mechanism that triggers this breast cancer 'time bomb' – and suggests a strategy to defuse it. Patients with oestrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer – the most common type – have a continued risk of their cancer recurring in another part of their body for many years or even decades after their original ...

The right cocktail of gut enzymes can stop c. diff in its tracks

2023-03-13
Not all probiotics are created equal. In a new study, researchers found that certain enzymes within a class known as bile salt hydrolases (BSHs) can restrict Clostridioides difficile (C. diff.) colonization by both altering existing bile acids and by creating a new class of bile acids within the gut's microbial environment. The work could lead to “designer” probiotics that protect against disease by introducing specific BSHs to the gut after antibiotic treatment. Selecting the right suite of BSH-producing bacteria is critical, because the study found that interactions between BSHs and bile acids ...

Researchers identify novel genes that may increase risk for schizophrenia

2023-03-13
New York, NY (March 13, 2023) – Researchers have identified two previously unknown genes linked to schizophrenia and newly implicated a third gene as carrying risk for both schizophrenia and autism. Led by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the multi-center study further demonstrated that the schizophrenia risk conferred by these rare damaging variants is conserved across ethnicities. The study may also point to new therapeutics. The findings were published in the March 13 online issue of Nature ...

Changing landscapes alter disease-scapes: Study

2023-03-13
A new study has highlighted how and when changes to the environment result in animal-borne disease thresholds being breeched, allowing for a better understanding and increased capacity to predict the risk of transmissions.  For the first time, researchers from Griffith University, Stanford University and the University of California used cumulative pressure mapping and machine learning to better understand how six vector-borne diseases (those transmitted by biting insects) found in different environments responded to the effects of human pressures.  Published in Nature Sustainability, the research found diseases associated with ...

New AI model transforms understanding of metal-organic frameworks

New AI model transforms understanding of metal-organic frameworks
2023-03-13
How does an iPhone predict the next word you’re going to type in your messages? The technology behind this, and also at the core of many AI applications, is called a transformer; a deep-learning algorithm that detects patterns in datasets. Now, researchers at EPFL and KAIST have created a transformer for Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs), a class of porous crystalline materials. By combining organic linkers with metal nodes, chemists can synthesize millions of different materials with potential applications in energy storage and gas separation. The “MOFtransformer” is designed to be the ChatGPT for researchers that study MOFs. It’s architecture is based ...

Magnetism fosters unusual electronic order in quantum material

Magnetism fosters unusual electronic order in quantum material
2023-03-13
HOUSTON – (March 13, 2023) – Physicists were surprised by the 2022 discovery that electrons in magnetic iron-germanium crystals could spontaneously and collectively organize their charges into a pattern featuring a standing wave. Magnetism also arises from the collective self-organization of electron spins into ordered patterns, and those patterns rarely coexist with the patterns that produce the standing wave of electrons physicists call a charge density wave. In a study published this week in Nature Physics, Rice University physicists Ming Yi and Pengcheng Dai, and many of their collaborators from the 2022 ...

Beheshti conducting tribological study of propulsion shaft materials subjected to advanced surface strengthening treatments

2023-03-13
Ali Beheshti, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, received funding for the project: "Surface Integrity and Tribological Study of Propulsion Shaft Materials Subjected to Advanced Surface Strengthening Treatments."  In this project, Beheshti and his team are conducting detailed analyses of IN625, a nickel-based superalloy, and Ni-Cu, alloys of copper and nickel, subjected to an advanced laser peening (LP) process. The process uses very high-speed laser generated shock waves applied to the material and results in significant mechanical strength.  Specifically, they are studying unpeened, ...

Gut microbiome plays key role in response to CAR-T cell cancer immunotherapy

2023-03-13
Scientists from German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), together with colleagues from Germany, Israel, and the USA, have found that the gut microbiome may modulate the efficacy of CAR-T cellular immunotherpy CAR-T cells in patients with B cell lymphomas. Individualized microbiome information retreaved from patients‘ gut microbiomes prior to initiation of CAR T therapy could accurately predict their subsequent responsiveness to therapy, but only in the condition that these patients were not pre-treated with broad spectrum ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Scientists unlock secrets behind flowering of the king of fruits

Texas A&M researchers illuminate the mysteries of icy ocean worlds

Prosthetic material could help reduce infections from intravenous catheters

Can the heart heal itself? New study says it can

Microscopic discovery in cancer cells could have a big impact

Rice researchers take ‘significant leap forward’ with quantum simulation of molecular electron transfer

Breakthrough new material brings affordable, sustainable future within grasp

How everyday activities inside your home can generate energy

Inequality weakens local governance and public satisfaction, study finds

Uncovering key molecular factors behind malaria’s deadliest strain

UC Davis researchers help decode the cause of aggressive breast cancer in women of color

Researchers discovered replication hubs for human norovirus

SNU researchers develop the world’s most sensitive flexible strain sensor

Tiny, wireless antennas use light to monitor cellular communication

Neutrality has played a pivotal, but under-examined, role in international relations, new research shows

Study reveals right whales live 130 years — or more

Researchers reveal how human eyelashes promote water drainage

Pollinators most vulnerable to rising global temperatures are flies, study shows

DFG to fund eight new research units

Modern AI systems have achieved Turing's vision, but not exactly how he hoped

Quantum walk computing unlocks new potential in quantum science and technology

Construction materials and household items are a part of a long-term carbon sink called the “technosphere”

First demonstration of quantum teleportation over busy Internet cables

Disparities and gaps in breast cancer screening for women ages 40 to 49

US tobacco 21 policies and potential mortality reductions by state

AI-driven approach reveals hidden hazards of chemical mixtures in rivers

Older age linked to increased complications after breast reconstruction

ESA and NASA satellites deliver first joint picture of Greenland Ice Sheet melting

Early detection model for pancreatic necrosis improves patient outcomes

Poor vascular health accelerates brain ageing

[Press-News.org] Racial health inequality in prostate cancer associated with facility-level disparities
A retrospective research study found that specific hospital systems in the US are associated with worse prostate cancer treatment and outcomes for minority groups