Racial, Ethnic Disparities Seen in Mortality With Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer

TUESDAY, Nov. 26, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Racial and ethnic disparities exist in early-onset colorectal cancer (EOCRC) mortality, especially in those aged younger than 50 years, according to a study published online Nov. 22 in JAMA Network Open.

Joshua Demb, Ph.D., from the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, and colleagues investigated racial and ethnic differences in EOCRC mortality. The analysis included California Cancer Registry data for 22,834 individuals (aged 18 to 49 years) with EOCRC (2000 through 2019), with a median follow-up of 4.2 years.

The researchers found that compared with non-Hispanic White individuals, higher EOCRC mortality was seen for Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 1.34) and non-Hispanic Black (aHR, 1.18) individuals. When disaggregating Asian American ethnic groups, there was notable heterogeneity, but no single group had increased EOCRC mortality risk in a fully adjusted analysis. In the base model (adjusting for age, sex, and tumor characteristics), Hispanic individuals had higher EOCRC mortality (aHR, 1.15), but the association disappeared when further adjusting for neighborhood socioeconomic status. Similarly, in the base model, there was higher EOCRC mortality among Southeast Asian individuals (aHR, 1.17), which disappeared with the addition of insurance status to the model.

“These results provide evidence of the role of social determinants of health in explaining these differences,” the authors write.

One author disclosed ties to the diagnostics industry.

Abstract/Full Text

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