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More Support for the “Hispanic Paradox” Among Lung Cancer Patients

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According to research presented at the 2012 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology, Hispanics/Latinos with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have a higher overall survival compared to non-Hispanic white patients.

This study evaluated the records of 14,829 Hispanic NSCLC patients from the California Cancer Registry (CCR) database during the 20-year period of 1988-2008. Foreign-born Hispanic patients had a 14% lower risk for death compared with US-born Hispanic patients, including individual patient factors and clinical factors. Neighborhood factor adjustments, specifically socioeconomic status and ethnicity, somewhat diminished the decrease in death risk among foreign-born Hispanics. The data also indicated that better overall survival occurred among foreign-born Hispanics who lived in the least US-assimilated neighborhoods.

“The results of this study confirm the ‘Hispanic paradox’ of improved survival rates for Hispanic/Latino NSCLC patients compared with non-Hispanic white patients, despite lower socioeconomic status,” said lead author Manali Patel, MD, a post-doctoral fellow in the hematology/oncology department at Stanford University in Stanford, California. “Social and neighborhood factors, in addition to being foreign-born, appear to be positive contributing factors to incidence and survival that need further study.”

Source: NCI.