Gastric cancer disparities among asian American subpopulations

Abstract

Background/Aim: Asian Americans (AA) are one of the largest and fastest growing minority groups in the United States consisting of 18 million people. This population is an ethnically diverse group that tends to be classified as one cohort resulting in hidden survival disparities among AA subgroups. Patients and Methods: The National Cancer Data Base was queried for patients of Korean, Japanese or Filipino ancestry with gastric adenocarcinoma or esophageal adenocarcinoma between 2004 and 2013. Results: A total of 28,213 patients met the inclusion criteria: 1,542 with gastric adenocarcinoma and 26,671 with esophageal adenocarcinoma. The Korean group with gastric cancer (0.42) showed improved 5-year survival over the Japanese (0.31) and Filipino (0.21; p<0.001) groups. Conclusion: A significant difference in survival exists among AA subgroups signifying a need to acknowledge the heterogeneity of AA in future studies. Thus, individual-specific medicine with respect to race-related outcomes is extremely important.