Abstract
17538 Background: Racial disparities in Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL) are not well studied. Earlier studies suggested that black patients received less treatment and had worse outcome. The VA health care system offers a platform to study those racial differences given similar other variables and socioeconomic status among those patients. Methods: This was a retrospective analysis. The VA Central Cancer Registry (VACCR) database was used to identify patients with HL diagnosed between 1995 and 2005. There are approximately 120 VA medical centers diagnosing and/or treating patients with cancer. Data are entered by tumor registrars at the VA medical centers. This site aggregates the data collected by the medical centers’ cancer registries. Data was extrapolated and analyzed using bio-statistical software SPSS. Results: There were 1009 patients with HL at the VA system, 801 white and 183 black patients. Twenty-five patients from other racial groups were excluded from this analysis. The median age of presentation among blacks was 50.8 years compared to 53.8 years among whites (P-value 0.026). More white patients had family history of HL. Black patients had a higher incidence lymphocyte depleted histological subtype 33 (18.0%) vs. 75 (9.4%) and whites had a higher prevalence of nodular sclerosing subtype, 260 (32.5%) vs. 32 (17.5%). Other baseline characteristics such as sex, history of smoking, alcohol, and radiation exposure were similar. Presence of bulky disease and stage of lymphoma at presentation were also similar. Similar proportion of patients received chemotherapy among the two groups, 70 % for blacks and 69% for whites. Among blacks 19.7 % of patients received radiation while 25.5 % white patients did (P-value 0.24). The 5-year overall survival of blacks was 53 % years as opposed to 54% for whites (P-value 0.93) Conclusions: The presenting features, risk factors are similar across black and white races among VA population. Blacks are more likely to present with lymphocyte depleted type of HD. The treatment and outcome of HL among blacks are not different from whites within the VA system. No significant financial relationships to disclose.
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