Death Rate Higher in Minorities with Acute Leukemia

Abstract

Blacks and Hispanics have fewer cases of acute leukemia compared to whites but they die at a substantially higher rate, according to study results presented at the Fourth AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities, held here Sept. 18-21, 2011. From 1998 to 2008, blacks had a 17 percent increased risk of dying from acute leukemia and Hispanics had a 12 percent increased risk compared to white patients. When separated into the two forms of acute leukemia – acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) – the difference in mortality was even more striking. Blacks and Hispanics diagnosed…