All-Cause Mortality Differences Among Hispanic Patients With CLL: Perspective From the Bronx
Posted: Wednesday, December 8, 2021
Previous research suggests better survival among Hispanic patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma compared with non-Hispanic White patients; however, less is known about ethnic survival differences in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Recent findings published in Cancer Causes & Control highlighted differences in all-cause mortality among Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black patients diagnosed with CLL or follicular lymphoma. H. Dean Hosgood III, PhD, of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, and colleagues examined data from the Hematological Malignancies Cohort at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. They reported no apparent differences across race or ethnicity for CLL, although Hispanic patients with follicular lymphoma seemed to have lower all-cause mortality compared with non-Hispanic White patients.
Montefiore’s Electronic Data Warehouse was used to extract demographic and clinical data on a total of 3,821 cases diagnosed between 2005 and 2016. Cox proportional hazards regression was then used to assess the association between race/ethnicity and all-cause mortality among a smaller subset of patients with CLL (n = 350) and follicular lymphoma (n = 210). Baseline clinical factors included age at diagnosis, sex, stage at diagnosis, socioeconomic status, and others. Calculations for all-cause mortality rates were made from age at diagnosis to age at death, with living patients censored at age at last contact.
Findings revealed that 39.3% of patients with follicular lymphoma were non-Hispanic White, whereas 19.4% were non-Hispanic Black and 41.3% were Hispanic, with patients who had CLL having a similar ethnic distribution. After adjustments were made for International Prognostic Index factors, sex, and chemotherapy, Hispanic patients with follicular lymphoma were found to have lower all-cause mortality compared with non-Hispanic White patients (hazard ratio = 0.22; 95% confidence interval 0.08%–0.63%). Ultimately, there were no differences identified between non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White patients who had follicular lymphoma and by any race for those who had CLL.
Disclosure: The study authors reported no conflicts of interest.
