Dataset Information

Insurance status and disparities in disease presentation, treatment, and outcomes for men with germ cell tumors.

ABSTRACT: People aged 26 to 34 years represent the greatest proportion of the uninsured, and they have the highest incidence of testicular cancers. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between insurance status and cancer outcomes in men diagnosed with germ cell tumors.The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database was used to identify 10,211 men diagnosed with germ cell gonadal neoplasms from 2007 to 2011. Associations between insurance status and characteristics at diagnosis and receipt of treatment were examined with log-binomial regression. The association between insurance status and mortality was assessed with Cox proportional hazards regression.Uninsured patients had an increased risk of metastatic disease at diagnosis (relative risk [RR], 1.26; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.15-1.38) in comparison with insured patients, as did Medicaid patients (RR, 1.62; 95% CI, 1.51-1.74). Among men with metastatic disease, uninsured and Medicaid patients were more likely to be diagnosed with intermediate/poor-risk disease (RR for uninsured patients, 1.22; 95% CI, 1.04-1.44; RR for Medicaid patients, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.23-1.57) and were less likely to undergo lymph node dissection (RR for uninsured patients, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.57-0.94; RR for Medicaid patients, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.63-0.92) in comparison with insured patients. Men without insurance were more likely to die of their disease (hazard ratio [HR], 1.88; 95% CI, 1.29-2.75) in comparison with insured men, as were those with Medicaid (HR, 1.51; 95% CI, 1.08-2.10).Patients without insurance and patients with Medicaid have an increased risk of presenting with advanced disease and dying of the disease in comparison with those who have insurance. Future studies should examine whether implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act reduces these disparities. Cancer 2016;122:3127-35. © 2016 American Cancer Society.

SUBMITTER: Markt SC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5048492 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Insurance status and disparities in disease presentation, treatment, and outcomes for men with germ cell tumors.

Markt Sarah C SC Lago-Hernandez Carlos A CA Miller Rowan E RE Mahal Brandon A BA Bernard Brandon B Albiges Laurence L Frazier Lindsay A LA Beard Clair J CJ Wright Alexi A AA Sweeney Christopher J CJ

Cancer 20160808 20

<h4>Background</h4>People aged 26 to 34 years represent the greatest proportion of the uninsured, and they have the highest incidence of testicular cancers. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between insurance status and cancer outcomes in men diagnosed with germ cell tumors.<h4>Methods</h4>The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database was used to identify 10,211 men diagnosed with germ cell gonadal neoplasms from 2007 to 2011. Associations between insurance stat ...[more]

PMID: 27500561

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundNumerous studies across a variety of malignancies have demonstrated that health insurance status is associated with differences in clinical presentation, type of treatments received, and survival. The effect of insurance status on the management of soft tissue sarcoma is unknown. We assessed the association of insurance on (a) stage at diagnosis, (b) receipt of neoadjuvant/adjuvant radiation therapy, and (c) overall survival (OS) in patients with soft tissue sarcoma.MethodsThe study cohort was identified from the National Cancer Database (NCDB) and consisted of patients with stage I-IV soft tissue sarcoma of various histologies diagnosed from 2004 to 2015. The patients were stratified by age (<65 and ?65 years) and by insurance status (commercial, Medicare, Medicaid and uninsured). Using multivariable logistic regression analysis, we evaluated the association between insurance status and (a) stage at diagnosis (Stage I-III vs IV), and (b) receipt of neoadjuvant/adjuvant radiation therapy in patients with locally advanced disease. The association of insurance status on OS was assessed using Kaplan-Meier and multivariable Cox proportional hazards analyses. A propensity score matched survival analysis was performed to account for measured confounders.Results49 754 patients were identified of whom 23 677 (48%) had commercial insurance, 20 867 (42%) had Medicare, 3229 (6%) had Medicaid, and 1981 (4%) were uninsured. In patients <65 years, those with Medicaid (OR = 1.74, 95% CI: 1.57-1.93, P < .001) and the uninsured (OR = 1.71, 95% CI: 1.51-1.94, P < .001) were more likely to present with stage IV vs Stage I-III disease. Furthermore, among patients with locally advanced disease treated with limb sparing surgery, those with Medicaid (OR = 0.87, 95% CI: 0.77- 0.98, P = .021) and the uninsured (OR = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.63-0.85, P < .001) were less likely to receive neoadjuvant or adjuvant radiotherapy as compared to those with commercial insurance. Lastly, having Medicaid (HR = 1.26, 95% CI: 1.17-1.34, P < .001) and no insurance (HR = 1.30, 95% CI: 1.20-1.41, P < .001) was associated with worse OS compared to having commercial insurance, a finding which remained significant after propensity score matching. In contrast, in patients ?65 years, there were no statistically significant differences between those with Medicare and commercial insurance with regards to disease presentation, receipt of radiotherapy, or survival.ConclusionsIn a large modern cohort identified from the NCDB, commercial insurance status in patients <65 years was associated early diagnosis, receipt of neoadjuvant/adjuvant radiation therapy, and overall survival for patients with soft tissue sarcoma. Further efforts are warranted to understand disparities in care based on health insurance in the United States.

Project description:Breast cancer remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality among women in the US, and despite numerous studies documenting racial disparities in outcomes, the survival difference between Black and White women diagnosed with breast cancer continues to widen. Few studies have assessed whether observed racial disparities in outcomes vary by insurance type e.g. Medicare/Medicaid versus private insurance. Differences in coverage, availability of networked physicians, or cost-sharing policies may influence choice of treatment and treatment outcomes, even after patients have been hospitalized, effects of which may be differential by race.The aim of this analysis was to examine hospitalization outcomes among patients with a primary diagnosis of breast cancer and assess whether differences in outcome exist by insurance status after adjusting for age, race/ethnicity and socio-economic status.We obtained data on over 67,000 breast cancer patients with a primary diagnosis of breast cancer for this cross-sectional study from the 2007-2011 Healthcare Cost and Utilization project Nationwide Inpatient Sample (HCUP-NIS), and examined breast cancer surgery type (mastectomy vs. breast conserving surgery or BCS), post-surgical complications and in-hospital mortality. Multivariable regression models were used to compute estimates, odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals.Black patients were less likely to receive mastectomies compared with White women (OR: 0.80, 95% CI: 0.71-0.90), regardless of whether they had Medicare/Medicaid or Private insurance. Black patients were also more likely to experience post-surgical complications (OR: 1.41, 95% CI: 1.12-1.78) and higher in-hospital mortality (OR: 1.57, 95%: 1.21-2.03) compared with White patients, associations that were strongest among women with Private insurance. Women residing outside of large metropolitan areas were significantly more likely to receive mastectomies (OR: 1.89, 95% CI: 1.54-2.31) and experience higher in-hospital mortality (OR: 1.74, 95% CI: 1.40-2.16) compared with those in metropolitan areas, regardless of insurance type.Among hospitalized patients with breast cancer, racial differences in hospitalization outcomes existed and worse outcomes were observed among Black women with private insurance. Future studies are needed to determine factors associated with poor outcomes in this group of women, as well as to examine contributors to low BCS adoption in non-metropolitan areas.

Project description:Policy Points Patients with low socioeconomic status (SES) experience poorer survival rates after diagnosis of breast cancer, even when enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid. Most of the difference in survival is due to more advanced cancer on presentation and the general poor health of lower SES patients, while only a very small fraction of the SES disparity is due to differences in cancer treatment. Even when comparing only low- versus not-low-SES whites (without confounding by race) the survival disparity between disparate white SES populations is very large and is associated with lower use of preventive care, despite having insurance.ContextDisparities in breast cancer survival by socioeconomic status (SES) exist despite the "safety net" programs Medicare and Medicaid. What is less clear is the extent to which SES disparities affect various racial and ethnic groups and whether causes differ across populations.MethodsWe conducted a tapered matching study comparing 1,890 low-SES (LSES) non-Hispanic white, 1,824 black, and 723 Hispanic white women to 60,307 not-low-SES (NLSES) non-Hispanic white women, all in Medicare and diagnosed with invasive breast cancer between 1992 and 2010 in 17 US Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) regions. LSES Medicare patients were Medicaid dual-eligible and resided in neighborhoods with both high poverty and low education. NLSES Medicare patients had none of these factors.Measurements5-year and median survival.FindingsLSES non-Hispanic white patients were diagnosed with more stage IV disease (6.6% vs 3.6%; p < 0.0001), larger tumors (24.6 mm vs 20.2 mm; p < 0.0001), and more chronic diseases such as diabetes (37.8% vs 19.0%; p < 0.0001) than NLSES non-Hispanic white patients. Disparity in 5-year survival (NLSES - LSES) was 13.7% (p < 0.0001) when matched for age, year, and SEER site (a 42-month difference in median survival). Additionally, matching 55 presentation factors, including stage, reduced the disparity to 4.9% (p = 0.0012), but further matching on treatments yielded little further change in disparity: 4.6% (p = 0.0014). Survival disparities among LSES blacks and Hispanics, also versus NLSES whites, were significantly associated with presentation factors, though black patients also displayed disparities related to initial treatment. Before being diagnosed, all LSES populations used significantly less preventive care services than matched NLSES controls.ConclusionsIn Medicare, SES disparities in breast cancer survival were large (even among non-Hispanic whites) and predominantly related to differences of presentation characteristics at diagnosis rather than differences in treatment. Preventive care was less frequent in LSES patients, which may help explain disparities at presentation.

Project description:Background:Racial disparities in cancer have been attributed to population differences in access to care. Differences in cancer overdiagnosis rates are another, less commonly considered cause of disparities. Here, we examine the contribution of overdiagnosis to observed racial disparities in papillary thyroid cancer and estrogen/progesterone receptor positive (ER/PR+) breast cancer. Methods:We used Surveillance, Epidemiology, End-Results (SEER) 13 for analysis of white and black non-Hispanic persons with papillary thyroid cancer or ER/PR+ breast cancer (1992-2014). Analyses were performed using SeerStat (v8.3.5, March 2018). All statistical tests were two-sided. Results:White persons had higher incidence of papillary thyroid cancer than black persons (14.3 vs 7.7 cases per 100?000 age-adjusted population) and ER/PR+ breast cancer (94.8 vs 70.9 cases per 100?000 age-adjusted population) (P < .001). In papillary thyroid cancer, the entire incidence difference was from more frequent diagnosis of 2-cm or less (10.0 vs 4.9 cases per 100?000 population) and localized or regional (13.8 vs 7.4 cases per 100?000 population) cancers in white persons (P < .001), without corresponding excess of metastatic disease, cancers greater than 4 cm, or incidence-based mortality in black persons. In women with ER/PR+ breast cancer, 95% of the incidence difference was from more 2-cm or less (61.2 vs 38.1 cases per 100?000 population) or 2.1- to 5-cm (25.4 vs 23.4 cases per 100?000 population), localized (65.1 vs 43.0 cases per 100?000 population) cancers diagnosed in white women (P < .001), with slightly higher incidence of tumors greater than 5 cm (10.1 vs 9.3 cases per 100?000 population, P < .001) and incidence-based mortality (8.1 vs 7.2 cases per 100?000 population, P < .001) among black women. Overall, 20-30 additional small or localized ER/PR+ breast cancers were diagnosed in white compared with black women for every large or advanced tumor avoided by early detection. Overdiagnosis was estimated 1.3-2.5 times (papillary thyroid cancer) and 1.7-5.7 times (ER/PR+ breast cancer) higher in white compared with black populations. Conclusions:Differences in low-risk cancer identification among populations lead to overestimation of racial disparities. Estimates of overdiagnosed cases should be considered to improve care and eliminate disparities while minimizing harms of overdiagnosis.

Dataset Information

Insurance status and disparities in disease presentation, treatment, and outcomes for men with germ cell tumors.

Publications

Insurance status and disparities in disease presentation, treatment, and outcomes for men with germ cell tumors.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets