Racial and ethnic disparities in 21-gene recurrence scores, chemotherapy, and survival among women with hormone receptor-positive, node-negative breast cancer

Distribution, Chemotherapy Use, and Outcome of the 21-Gene Recurrence Score Between Chinese and White breast Cancer in the United States

“…A recent population-based study has shown no significant difference between race and high RS in BC patients aged ≥65 years [16]. The median age of diagnosis was similar between AA and WA BC patients (58-59 years) [12,13], while Chinese patients were much younger (53 years) in our study. We found a similar distribution of RS between WA and Chinese BC.…”

“…Several studies have tried to answer the question regarding the distribution and prognostic effect of RS in BC among the different races. However, most of them were included the WA and AA patients, and the results showed that AA had a higher rate of high RS (8.3-15.8%) compared to those with WA (5.9-7.1%) [12][13][14]. A recent population-based study has shown no significant difference between race and high RS in BC patients aged ≥65 years [16].…”

“…The reason for the observed difference remains unclear. Several studies have shown that African Americans (AA) had a higher rate of high RS (8.3-15.8%) than those with WA (5.9-7.1%) [12][13][14]. The role of the RS assay in evaluating intrinsic biological differences makes it an attractive tool to understand the outcome disparities between Chinese and WA BC patients.…”

Disparities in Breast Cancer Associated With African American Identity

“…Table 4 summarizes the results of several studies that have used Oncotype DX profiling to evaluate possible race-related variation in patients with luminal A-type breast tumor biology. Interestingly, two studies of SEER data linked to the Oncotype DX database demonstrated that African American patients are more likely to have high-risk recurrence scores, 82,83 whereas the National Cancer Database 84 and data from the prospective randomized TAILORx clinical trial 85 reported similar distributions of scores for African American patients and White American patients. The TAILORx study did, however, confirm worse outcomes for the African American patients compared with White American patients with intermediate-risk scores, but the investigators found that the Oncotype DX results had comparable effectiveness in predicting chemotherapy benefit in both patient subsets.…”

Racial/Ethnic Differences in the 21-Gene Recurrence Score Assay Among Women With Breast Cancer

“…First, this study found that the relative risk of a recurrence score (RS) greater than 25 for Black women compared with non-Hispanic White women was 1.30 in unadjusted Poisson regression models and 1.21 after adjusting for nodal status, tumor size, age, and year of diagnosis . However, the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program currently covers approximately 34.6% of the US population, which means that its population structure is different from the population structure of the US . Therefore, to fairly compare the racial difference in high-risk RS (RS > 25) between Black and non-Hispanic White women, the authors should calculate the standardized rate of high-risk RS for Black and non-Hispanic White women by using direct standardization with the standard US population and then compare the standardized high-risk RS rate of Black and non-Hispanic White women …”