Race in a molecular tumor board compared to cancer registry population.

Abstract

103 Background: Disparities in cancer care due to race and ethnicity are prevalent in both the care patients receive and patient outcomes. The evaluation of next generation sequencing (NGS) results from patients with advanced cancer by a molecular tumor board (MTB) has become standard practice in many institutions for the identification of additional treatment options and targeted therapies. We sought to compare the racial distribution of patients evaluated by our MTB with our institutional cancer registry (CR). Methods: We tabulated the racial distribution of 560 MTB patients chosen for presentation in a bimonthly case conference based on physician request or clinical interest from more than 2,500 NGS reports of patients with advanced cancer from 2016 through 2020. Self-identified race from patients with stage 4 cancer within our institutional CR from the same time interval was compared to the MTB population from each year using the Chi-Squared test. The Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test was used to analyze the relationship between race and MTB/CR after controlling for year. Race categories were defined as Asian, Black/African-American (AA), White/Caucasian, and other. Results: We identified 4,151 CR patients with stage 4 cancer from 2016 through 2020, 573 of whom identified as Black/AA (13.8%). Of the 560 MTB patients, 55 were Black/AA (9.8%). When controlling for year, Black/AA patients were less frequently included in the MTB compared to the CR (p = 0.0128). Conclusions: Black/AA patients with advanced cancer are under-represented in our MTB. Larger studies are warranted to examine underlying causes of this discrepancy including implicit bias, generalizability of this finding to other minorities and institutions, and potential remedies to ensure equitable access to state-of-the-art cancer care.[Table: see text]