Standardizing treatment.

This SEER analysis of 7226 women with locally-advanced cervical cancer sought to determine if race of insurance status affected the rate of receipt of life-saving brachytherapy. Only about half received this gold standard therapy as a component of treatment. Indeed, Black race (OR 0.68) and having Medicaid (OR 0.80) or being uninsured (OR 0.67) was associated with worse odds of receiving brachy. What’s more, while there was an overall significant race discrepancy in disease-specific survival, this disappeared when comparing only those who actually received standard of care, suggesting the long-observed worse outcomes among Black women with cervical cancer are more likely due to treatment inequities than inherent biologic differences. | Boyce-Fappiano, JCO Oncol Pract 2021