Minority Differences in Cancer Survival on Cooperative Group Clinical Trials

• Activity Number: 97
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 7, 2006 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: ENAR
• Author(s): Beow Yeap*+ and Marvin Zelen
• Companies: Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard School of Public Health
• Keywords: African-American ; race ; matching ; gender

Abstract

Outcome comparisons between racial groups generally lack the data to adjust for patient variation in disease, therapy, and institution factors. The Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) conducts multi-center clinical trials in adult cancers nationwide. From 1976--1995, the ECOG accrual of about 74,000 patients on therapeutic protocols was 9% African American (AA). To minimize patient variation without explicit covariate modeling, each AA proband was matched by gender to a white patient enrolled in the same protocol, assigned to the same arm, and treated at the same hospital. An overall 10% higher death rate among AA patients is distributed unevenly between genders with more of the burden on AA women. In latter years, the excess mortality has diminished so that AA patients appear to have similar benefits as whites. Follow up and enrollment data will be updated.