Study: Poor Blacks Far More Likely to Die of Colorectal Cancer

African Americans living in poverty are more likely than others to die of colorectal cancer because it is frequently discovered when it already is at an incurable stage, according to researchers reporting in the journal Cancer.

Dr. Harold P. Freeman and colleagues reviewed the records of 615 patients treated for colorectal cancer between 1973 and 1992 at Harlem Hospital, which serves a poor, predominantly African-American section of New York.

"Although colorectal carcinoma mortality continues to decline nationally, in this population of poor blacks the mortality rate remained high and unchanged," the researchers said.

Freeman reported that only 18.7 percent of all of the patients treated for colorectal cancer were alive 5 years after their diagnosis.

"The relative survival rate was 19.7%, substantially lower than the national average for the same years," Freeman reported.

He concluded that the primarily cause of the high mortality rate was diagnosis of the patients when the cancer was already "at an incurable stage, resulting from the combined effects of poverty, lack of education, and lack of access to primary care."

Other sources: Cancer