WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 -- Black women with advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer had significantly worse survival duration than white women who received the same therapy in four clinical trials, reported several investigators.
Black women survived an average of 10.6 months, compared with 12.2 months for white women. Although black women overall had more serious disease at presentation, the differences in survival persisted even after controlling for variables that could affect clinical outcomes, wrote G. Larry Mitchell, M.D., of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center here, and colleagues in the Gynecologic Oncology Group.
"Although the causes of this survival difference remain to be elucidated, socioeconomic, biologic, and cultural etiologies may be involved," the investigators wrote in an early online article scheduled for publication in the Nov. 1 issue of Cancer.
According to American Cancer Society estimates, about 7% of women newly diagnosed with endometrial cancer are black, but black women account for about 14% of the approximately 7,000 deaths from the disease.
