Hispanic patients with blood cancers residing in Texas experienced worsened overall survival (OS) outcomes when compared with their non-Hispanic white counterparts, according to study results presented at the AACR Virtual Annual Meeting II.

In addition, Hispanic patients residing near the United States/Mexico border had lower OS outcomes than those living in other areas within Texas, results showed.

“Cancer is the leading cause of death among Hispanics in the United States,” said Alfonso Bencomo-Alvarez, PhD, postdoctoral research associate at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, El Paso. “Furthermore, Hispanics are more likely to be diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) — two types of blood cancer — at younger ages, and typically have worse OS than non-Hispanic white patients.”

Hispanics are the largest minority group in the United States, and more than 11 million people who identify as Hispanic reside in Texas. Previous research has suggested that Hispanic patients with cancer face health care disparities at higher rates than non-Hispanic white patients. However, no prior study has considered disparities among Hispanic patients with blood cancers residing near the border.

“In contrast to the Hispanic population across the United States, which is heterogeneous and includes Hispanics from various countries, the majority of Hispanics in Texas and at the border are Mexican,” said Bencomo-Alvarez. “Therefore, studying Hispanics in this region gives us the opportunity to study a largely Mexican population as a way to better understand the disparities in this group.” 

Bencomo-Alvarez and colleagues identified 62,756 cases of acute leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome and myeloproliferative neoplasms diagnosed between 1995 and 2016 in the Texas Cancer Registry. The majority of patients (n = 42,756) identified as non-Hispanic white; the remaining 10,822 identified as Hispanic.

The researchers observed a significantly younger age at diagnosis for Hispanics in comparison to non-Hispanic whites for all cancer subtypes (P < .0001).

An unadjusted analysis showed that Hispanic patients with myeloid malignancies achieved superior OS outcomes to their non-Hispanic white counterparts (P < .0001), although no significant differences were apparent in other forms of leukemia. 

However, adjustments for age showed that Hispanic patients had significantly worse 10-year survival rates for ALL (29% vs. 39%; P < .0001) and acute promyelocytic leukemia (69% vs. 76%; P = .03); there were no significant differences observed in other disease states.

The researchers further analyzed data from 1160 Hispanic patients living in El Paso, Texas, which is adjacent to the Mexico border, in comparison to 9662 Hispanic patients living elsewhere in the state. They observed that 10-year survival rates were significantly lower among Hispanic patients in El Paso for AML (13% vs. 22%; P < .0001), ALL (28% vs. 31%; P = .0164) and chronic myeloid leukemia (43% vs. 57%; P = .016).

“Hispanic individuals living at the border tend to be poorer, are more likely to lack health insurance, and many could be undocumented,” Bencomo-Alvarez said. He conjectured that these factors may contribute to a reluctance to seek medical attention, which may ultimately result in health care disparities.