In an effort to explain racial disparities in breast cancer survival, this study aimed to investigate how comorbidity affects breast cancer-specific mortality by race.
A retrospective cohort study was conducted using the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results-Medicare linked data including 68,090 women 66+ years, who were diagnosed with stage I-III breast cancer in the United States from 1994 to 2004. Hospital and outpatient claims from the year prior to breast cancer diagnosis were used to identify comorbid conditions and patients were followed for survival through 2010.
Competing risk survival analysis failed to demonstrate any negative comorbidity effects on breast cancer-specific survival for black women. An increased breast cancer-specific mortality hazard was observed for white women who had diabetes without complication relative to white women without this condition after adjusting for age and year of diagnosis (hazard ratio: 1.22, 95% confidence interval 1.13, 1.30). The Cochran-Armitage Test showed diabetes was associated with a later stage of diagnosis (p < 0.01) and a more aggressive tumor grade (p < 0.01) among white women in the study population.
Race specific comorbidity effects do not explain breast cancer-specific survival disparities. However, the relationship between diabetes and breast cancer, including the role of aggressive tumor characteristics, warrants special attention.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
2
5%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
2
5%
Nursing and Health Professions
1
3%
Other
4
11%
Unknown
14
37%
Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 23 June 2017.
All research outputs
#15,002,375
of 23,854,458 outputs
Outputs from Cancer Causes & Control
#1,527
of 2,187 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#179,767
of 319,413 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Cancer Causes & Control
#9
of 19 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,854,458 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 35th percentile – i.e., 35% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,187 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.2. This one is in the 27th percentile – i.e., 27% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 19 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 52% of its contemporaries.
