Introduction: Non-Hispanic black women are less often diagnosed with endometrial cancer than are non-Hispanic white women, but are more likely to die of their disease. Reasons for this disparity in outcome are not well understood.
Methods: The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End-Results Program data were used to sample women newly diagnosed in 1998 with cancer of the corpus uteri. A total of 711 women with no previous diagnosis of cancer were selected. Women with sarcoma were not eligible for the study. We then sought to verify the therapy provided each woman with her treating physician.
Results: Non-Hispanic black women were diagnosed with higher stage, grade, poor histologic subtype, and greater extension of the tumor than were non-Hispanic white women. Hispanic women were diagnosed with more favorable tumor characteristics than non-Hispanic black women, but less favorable than non-Hispanic white women. The use of radiation and chemotherapy increased with stage.
Conclusions: Our study did not show any difference in recommended therapy for women with uterine adenocarcinoma among NH black women, NH white women, and Hispanic women. We must look for other factors, therefore, to explain the disparities in cancer outcome observed among NH black women with endometrial cancer.