Demographic and social vulnerability factors associated with late diagnosis of gastrointestinal cancers.

Abstract

610 Background: Almost 30% of gastrointestinal cancers (GI) are diagnosed at an advanced stage. These patients have a poor prognosis with no curative options. Certain demographic and social factors adversely impact health outcomes. However, these have not been well studied in the context of late diagnosis of GI cancers. Methods: Texas and California cancer registries, merged with CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) database, were used to identify patients diagnosed with gastric, colorectal, pancreatic and liver cancer from 2004 to 2019. To determine the association of demographic and 16 social vulnerability factors, while accounting for differences in tumor characteristics, univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis (MVA) was performed for each cancer separately. Results: In total, 589,405 patients were included. Of these 166,910 (28.3%) patients had metastasis at diagnosis. This included 55%, 39%, 21%, and 17% of all pancreatic, gastric, colorectal and liver cancers respectively. On MVA, odds of metastatic cancer at presentation decreased with increasing age (except for pancreatic cancer where odds increased). Across all 4 cancer types, females and Asians had decreased odds while Blacks, uninsured and patients on Medicaid had increased odds of metastatic cancer at diagnosis. Poverty below 150% increased odds of metastatic pancreas, liver, and colorectal cancers at diagnosis. Odds were decreased for households with adults aged over 65 years for pancreas, colorectal and gastric cancers. Conclusions: This study has identified multiple demographic and social factors associated with odds of having metastatic GI cancer at diagnosis. Interventions aimed towards these at-risk populations offer an opportunity for early diagnosis and improved survival.[Table: see text]