Racial and ethnic disparities in 21-gene recurrence scores, chemotherapy, and survival among women with hormone receptor-positive, node-negative breast cancer - PubMed

Racial and ethnic disparities in 21-gene recurrence scores, chemotherapy, and survival among women with hormone receptor-positive, node-negative breast cancer - PubMed

Racial and ethnic disparities in 21-gene recurrence scores, chemotherapy, and survival among women with hormone receptor-positive, node-negative breast cancer

Yunan Han 1 2, Zhi-Feng Miao 3 4, Min Lian 5 6, Lindsay L Peterson 7, Graham A Colditz 1 6, Ying Liu 8 9

Affiliations 

• PMID: 32929567
 
• DOI: 10.1007/s10549-020-05902-0

Abstract

Purpose: Cutoffs of the 21-gene recurrence score (RS), a commonly used genomic assay for hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, have been updated. Little is known about racial/ethnic differences in RS results, RS-guided chemotherapy use, and outcomes on updated cutoff (RS ≥ 31 defined as high-risk) in the real-world setting.

Methods: A total of 81,937 women [75.0% whites, 7.7% blacks, 8.3% Asian American/Pacific Islanders (AAPIs), and 9.0% Hispanics] diagnosed with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer between 2004 and 2015, who received the 21-gene assay, were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results. Logistic regressions estimated the race-associated odds ratios (ORs) of RS and chemotherapy use. Cox regressions estimated the race-associated hazard ratios (HRs) of breast cancer-specific and all-cause mortality.

Results: Compared with white women, black women were more likely to have RS-defined high-risk tumors (adjusted OR [aOR] 1.29; 95% CI 1.16-1.42). In high RS, blacks had lower odds of chemotherapy use (aOR 0.76; 95% CI 0.62-0.94) than whites, particularly among women ≥ 65 years (aOR 0.51; 95% CI 0.35-0.76), while AAPI and Hispanic women had no variation in chemotherapy use compared with whites in high RS. Black women had a higher risk of breast cancer-specific mortality (HR 1.37; 95% CI 1.12-1.67) and all-cause mortality compared with white women after adjusting for demographic and pathological factors, county-level socioeconomic deprivation, treatments and RS; AAPIs had lower mortality and Hispanics had similar mortality.

Conclusions: Black women were more likely to have a high-risk RS tumor and less likely to receive chemotherapy in the group of high RS, especially those ≥ 65 years. Further studies are needed to identify barriers to chemotherapy in black patients with high RS scores.

Keywords: 21-gene; Breast cancer; Chemotherapy; Oncotype DX; Race; Recurrence score; Survival.

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