More blacks refuse lung cancer surgery than whites
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African-Americans are three times as likely as whites to refuse surgical treatment for lung cancer, a new study shows.
Surgery is the only effective treatment for certain types of early stage lung cancer, and can often cure the disease, Dr. Bruno DiGiovine of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit and colleagues note in their report in the journal CHEST.
Black lung cancer patients have a higher mortality rate than whites, and are known to be less likely to get appropriate treatment, so DiGiovine and his team conducted their study to investigate why. They looked at 97 African Americans and 184 whites seen at their clinic for early stage lung cancer.
The researchers found that while a similar percentage of blacks and whites were offered surgery, 18 percent of blacks refused surgery compared with just 5 percent of whites.
The researchers didn’t ask patients why they declined the operation, but DiGiovine and his colleagues suggest two possibilities.
“I think there is an element of distrust in the health care system in general that some of our African-American patients have,” DiGiovine told Reuters Health.
Also, he said, black patients may be more likely to hold mistaken beliefs about the risks of surgery. He and his colleagues point to a study on patients’ attitudes toward lung cancer treatment that found 61 percent of African Americans believed the myth that the cancer could spread if exposed to air during surgery, while 29 percent of white patients did. Nineteen percent of blacks and 5 percent of whites said they would refuse surgery for this reason.
Whenever a patient doesn’t feel comfortable with treatment suggested by his or her doctor, DiGiovine said, it’s important to seek another opinion rather than just declining a treatment and moving on.
“Try to get as many opinions as you can, especially in something as important as a procedure where people tell you they think it’s clearly the right thing and we believe very strongly that this is the best therapy for what you have,” he said.
“It’s always OK to ask for another opinion, and it’s always OK to find another physician that you feel more comfortable with.”
SOURCE: CHEST, November 2005.
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