Breast cancer survival of Hispanic women in the USA is influenced by country of origin

Abstract

People of Hispanic origin comprise nearly 16 percent of the (US) population. With the growing population of Hispanics in the USA, an important epidemiological question is whether their country of origin affects survival in Hispanic women living in the USA at the time of diagnosis of breast cancer. We searched the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database for Hispanic women with a single primary breast cancer with known country of origin diagnosed between 1973 and 2008. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to evaluate whether the country of origin was an independent predictor of survival. In total, 48,849 female breast cancer patients of Hispanic origin were included in the SEER database. Nearly 23 percent of them had an origin in Mexico, 9 percent in South or Central America 3 percent in Puerto Rico, 2 percent in Cuba, 0.3 percent in the Dominical Republic and 3 percent in other countries, including Europe. About 60 percent of patients were identified as Hispanic by their surname or classified as Spanish/Hispanic not otherwise specified. Median survival of patients in these groups was 204, 240, 142, 169, 82.4, 115.5 and 210 months, respectively (P < 0.0001 by log-rank test). Univariate and multivariate analysis showed that the country of origin was an independent predictor of survival in Hispanic women with breast cancer. The country of origin is an independent predictor of overall survival among Hispanic women diagnosed with breast cancer.