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| Medical Pike Latest News : Headline Index : USA Prostate Cancer Care | ||||
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Gene and African- American Prostate Cancer African- |
Late
Diagnosis, Poor Care Factors in African-American Prostate Cancer Disaster Black American men may have a genetic predisposition to prostate cancer, researchers say. But this is not enough to account for the rate at which they die of it compared to other American men.  African
Americans are two to three times as likely to die of prostate cancer as
white men. Only 66% of African Americans diagnosed with prostate cancer
survive for five years, compared with 81% percent of white men.Is prostate cancer inevitably more deadly for African-American men? Not according to a senior radiation oncologist at the University of Rochester, Dr. Raymond Wynn, M.D. The extra suffering, he says, stems from lack of proper health care. Equal Treatment for Survival Poor medical care, Dr. Wynn says, leads to late diagnosis and inferior treatment once the disease is found. African-American men with prostate cancer live as long as white men after diagnosis if they receive the same treatment. Black men are not receiving adequate treatment. They also arenÂt going to the doctor until they have late-stage disease. "Quality care is essential, " says Dr. Wynn, "but African Americans also must get screened early if we want to reduce the number of prostate cancer deaths in this group." Prostate cancer screening is crucial for patients at highest risk of developing and dying from the disease at a relatively young age. If anyone must be screened, Wynn says, it is African American men. This is the opposite of what is happening. As more white men hear about the PSA test and ask for it, the difference in stage of disease at diagnosis between African Americans and white Americans is widening. Pain Care Worst for Hispanic Patients Pain treatment for cancer is lowgrade for many Americans and worst for minorities. At the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, Hispanic patients are even less likely to receive adequate pain treatment than are African Americans. A study of minority patients with metastatic cancer at M.D. Anderson found that 65% of the patients did not receive pain treatment up to standards in U.S. and World Health Organization guidelines. Even among whites, 50% of patients did not receive care meeting those standards.
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January 1998. Last modified April 3, 1999
PSA Rising prostate cancer survivor news http://www.psa-rising.com ©1998-1999 |
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