Screening, Diagnosis, and Initial Care of Asian and White Patients With Lung Cancer

Data on the care of Asian patients with lung cancer in the US are limited; however, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in this population.

Demographics, low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) screening, disease characteristics, and treatment history were compared between Asian and White patients newly diagnosed with lung cancer from 2014 to 2019 identified from Tufts Medical Center cancer registry. The influence of race on presenting stage was assessed via ordinal logistic regression. Time to treatment initiation (TTI) and overall survival (OS) were analyzed via log-rank tests. The impact of race on OS was evaluated via multivariable Cox regression.

Asian patients (N = 144) were more likely to prefer non-English languages, use interpreters, be never-smokers, and harbor EGFR alterations, compared to White patients (N = 472), and to be diagnosed with later-stage lung cancer (odds ratio: 2.14, P < .001), had longer median TTI (early stage: 2.30 vs. 1.43 months, P = .035; curative stage: 1.88 vs. 1.20 months, P = .041) and more often did not receive cancer-directed therapy (12.6% vs. 5.7%, P = .01). Screening LDCT was done only in 11.9% of Asian and 21.4% of White patients (P = .20) who would have met screening criteria prior to diagnosis (N = 215). Median OS was similar between Asian and White patients (not reached vs. 74.8 months, P = .17). Multivariable Cox model suggested better OS for Asian patients (hazard ratio: 0.57, P = .01).

In our study, Asian patients presented with later-stage lung cancer, had treatment delays, and more often did not receive treatment, compared to White patients, yet did not have inferior survival.