Foreign-born hispanics have survival advantage in NSCLC

(HealthDay)—Compared with non-Hispanic whites (NHWs) and U.S.-born Hispanics, foreign-born Hispanics with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have a reduced risk of disease-specific mortality, according to research published online Aug. 19 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Manali I. Patel, M.D., of Stanford University in California, and colleagues conducted a retrospective analysis of data for 1998 to 2007 from the California Cancer Registry (with follow-up through 2009) for NHWs and 14,280 Hispanics with NSCLC to assess individual, clinical, and neighborhood factors in survival.

The researchers found a significantly lower risk of disease-specific mortality related to NSCLC in foreign-born Hispanics, compared with NHWs (hazard ratio [HR], 0.85) after adjustment for individual, clinical, and neighborhood factors, and compared with U.S.-born Hispanics (HR, 0.90) after adjustment for individual factors. Foreign-born Hispanics who lived in low socioeconomic and high Hispanic enclave neighborhoods had a survival advantage compared with U.S.-born Hispanics.

"In conclusion, despite advanced stage at diagnosis, lower likelihood of treatment, and greater likelihood of living in low socioeconomic status neighborhoods, foreign-born Hispanics had improved survival after NSCLC than U.S.-born Hispanics and NHWs," the authors write.