In new findings from researchers at the American Cancer Society (ACS), non-Hispanic Black individuals diagnosed with a second primary cancer (SPC) experienced 21% higher cancer-related death rates and 41% higher cardiovascular-related death rates compared with their non-Hispanic White counterparts. The study also showed that Hispanic individuals diagnosed with a second primary cancer also experienced 10% higher cancer-related death rates compared with their non-Hispanic White counterparts, but 10% lower cardiovascular-related death rates. The paper was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open.
Study authors examined a retrospective cohort from 18 Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registries in the U.S., including adults diagnosed with one of the most common SPC’s, representing approximately 84% of all adult-onset SPC’s.
The results showed among 230,370 persons with SPC’s, 109,757 cancer deaths and 18,283 cardiovascular deaths occurred during 54 months of median follow-up. When the results were stratified by 13 SPC types, compared with White individuals, the risk of cancer death was higher for ten SPC types among Black individuals with the greatest disparity seen for survivors of second uterine cancers and for seven SPC types among Hispanic people, most notably for melanoma. The risk of cardiovascular death was higher among Black individuals of 11 SPC types, but generally lower among API and Hispanic populations than White individuals. Including county attributes (household income and urbanicity) and clinical characteristics (stage at diagnosis, tumor subtypes, treatment receipt) in the models reduced the racial and ethnic disparities substantially, highlighting opportunities to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the survival of those with multiple primary cancers.
