Breast cancer patients of lower socioeconomic status may have poorer survival

Breast cancer patients of lower socioeconomic status may have poorer survival

(Breast Cancer-January 19, 2004)

Morphological type and stage at presentation are relevant to why breast cancer patients of lower socioeconomic status have poorer survival rates.

According to recent research from England, "Breast cancer patients of lower socioeconomic status tend to have poorer survival. Among 10,865 cases of breast cancer from the East Anglian Cancer Registry diagnosed between 1982 and 1993, we estimated the extent to which the differences in survival by socioeconomic status, measured by both occupational and area-based methods, can be explained by differences between socioeconomic groups in stage and morphological type of tumor.

"In univariate survival analyses, lower social class (manual occupation) was associated with a relative hazard of 1.32 (95% CI 1.12-1.55) for death from breast cancer as underlying cause. Women resident in the most deprived area had a relative hazard of 1.21 (0.95-1.54) for death from breast cancer as underlying cause. Stage of disease accounted for 28% of the effect of social class on survival but for none of the effect of deprivation category," wrote F. Kaffashian and colleagues, University of London, Queen Mary College, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine.

"Morphological type accounted for 3% of the effect of social class and none of the effect of deprivation category. Thus, stage at presentation explains some but not all of the socioeconomic differences in breast cancer survival. Future research on histological grade and socioeconomic status is indicated," the researchers concluded.

Kaffashian and colleagues published their study in British Journal of Cancer (Socioeconomic effects on breast cancer survival: proportion attributable to stage and morphology. Br J Cancer, 2003;89(9):1693-1696).

For additional information, contact S.W. Duffy, University of London, Queen Mary College, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Department of Epidemiology Mathematical & Statistics, Cancer Research UK, Charterhouse Sq, London EC1M 6BQ, UK.

The information in this article comes under the major subject areas of Oncology. This article was prepared by Health & Medicine Week editors from staff and other reports.