Racial disparities in uterine clear cell carcinoma: a multi-institution study

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of race on the overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) of white and African-American patients with uterine clear cell carcinoma (UCCC).

A retrospective review was conducted of all primary UCCC cases treated at 1 of 4 major gynecologic cancer centers between 1982 and 2012. Patients and tumor characteristics were retrieved from the cancer databases of the respective institutions and based on a retrospective review of the medical records. Differences in the OS and PFS between African-American and white women were compared using the Kaplan-Meier curves and log-rank test for univariate analysis. Cox regression models for the multivariate analyses were built to evaluate the relative impact of the various prognostic factors.

One hundred seventy women with UCCC were included in the study, including 118 white and 52 African-American women. Both groups were comparable with respect to age (P = 0.9), stage at diagnosis (P = 0.34), angiolymphatic invasion (P = 0.3), and depth of myometrial invasion (P = 0.84). In the multivariate analyses for known prognostic factors, OS and PFS were significantly different between white and African-American patients in the early-stage disease (hazard ratio [HR], 5.4; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.2-23.2; P = 0.023 and HR, 3.5; 95% CI, 1.60-7.77; P = 0.0016, respectively) but not in the advanced-stage disease (HR, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.40-1.67; P = 0.61 and HR, 1.5; 95% CI, 0.84-2.78; P = 0.15, respectively).

In the current study, African-American patients have a prognosis worse than that of white patients in early-stage UCCC. We could not prove the same difference in advanced-stage disease.