The mortality rate remains higher for African-Americans with colon cancer -
African Americans with colon cancer are half as likely as patients Caucasian to have a type of colon cancer that is related to better results. The finding may provide insight into why African Americans are more likely to die of colon cancer than Caucasians with the same stage of disease.
The study of 503 people with colon cancer based on population found that 14 percent of Caucasians and 7 percent of African Americans had a genetic marker called microsatellite instability, or MSI . These types of tumors are known to be resistant to the chemotherapeutic agent 5-FU. Yet even without chemotherapy, these patients tend to have better results.
"We know that colon cancer patients without chemotherapy MSI do better. But these improved survival benefits are limited in African-Americans with colon cancer," says lead author the John M. Carethers study, MD, John G. Searle Professor and chair of internal medicine at the University of Michigan medical School
results of the study appear in the journal PLOS ONE .
researchers identified patients through the North Carolina Colon Cancer Study, a case-control study conducted in population throughout the Central and Eastern Carolina North. The study in North Carolina includes rural and urban areas, the creation of adequate representation by African Americans and rural residents.
The group Carethers patients and colleagues looked at was 45 percent Caucasian African American and 55 percent. The researchers examined tissue samples taken at the time of surgery and evaluated for different markers, including MSI.
In addition to the racial imbalance in MSI, the researchers also found that African-American patients were more likely than white patients to have cancer on the right side of their colon. This is important because cancer of the colon on the right is easier to miss with screening and more likely to be more or more advanced than the cancers on the left.
"face right colon cancer may be the" black ice "colon - .. invisible but potentially fatal strategies to better recognize and detect cancer on the right side may need to be pursued more broadly "said Carethers
EmoticonEmoticon