Site Editor
Jeremy S. Abramson, MD, MMSc
Jeremy S. Abramson, MD, MMSc
Posted: Tuesday, January 21, 2025
To document the representation of minorities in clinical trials, Alvaro J. Alencar, MD, of Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, Miami, Florida, and colleagues compiled patient data from the National Clinical Trials Network cooperative groups. The results of this trial, which aided efforts to understand relationships between race/ethnicity, insurance, and disease subtype among patients with lymphoma, were presented during the 2024 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition (Abstract 110).
This retrospective analysis included data from 3,897 patients enrolled in 32 cooperative group therapeutic trials from 2005 to 2020. Information such as race, ethnicity, health insurance, ZIP code, and Social Deprivation Index were collected and analyzed.
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (87.4%) was the most common diagnosis, followed by diffuse large B-cell (48.3%), follicular (26.6%), mantle cell (19.6%), Hodgkin (12.6%), primary central nervous system (3.3%), and T-cell (2.2%) lymphomas. The majority of patients were White (86.6%), followed by African American (6.3%), Asian (2.5%), American Indian or Alaska Native (0.3%), Two or More Races (0.3%), and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (0.2%); 145 patients were of unknown race. Non-Hispanic White (77.2%) was the most common ethnicity, followed by non-Hispanic Black (5.6%) and Hispanic or Latino (4.6%); ethnicity was unknown in 327 patients.
Private insurance was held by 55.6% of patients, 18.5% had public insurance, 14.5% had a mix of private and public insurance, and 4.4% were self-pay. Among 2,885 patients with Social Deprivation Index scores available, the mean score was 42.5, and there were significant differences in race/ethnicity and type of insurance. Of note, non-Hispanic White participants were from less deprived areas than non-Hispanic Black or Hispanic patients (P < .0001). Patients without insurance, or who had public insurance, appeared to live in areas associated with greater deprivation compared with those on private or public and private insurance (P < .0001).
Disclosure: For full disclosures of the study authors, visit ash.confex.com.
2024 ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition
