The Impact of Race and the Affordable Care Act on Thyroid Carcinoma Outcomes: A National Cancer Database Study

To assess the impact of race and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 on disease presentation and overall survival for patients with well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma.

Cross-sectional study of patients (n = 51,078) who underwent partial or total thyroidectomy with or without postoperative radioactive iodine (RAI) for well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma between 2004 and 2018 in the National Cancer Database (NCDB).

Cumulative survival (CS) was assessed with Cox proportional hazard regression analyses.

There were significant disparities in disease presentation at the time of diagnosis, with Black, Asian/Pacific Islander (API), and Hispanic patients were more likely to have metastatic disease (p < 0.001) and higher TNM stage (p < 0.001) at the time of diagnosis compared to White patients. Black patients had significantly increased risk of death (HR 1.147, 95%CI 1.021-1.289) but API patients had improved CS (HR 0.730, 95% CI 0.608-0.877) compared to White patients. Passage of the ACA was associated with lower risk of mortality, regardless of whether patients lived in states that did not expand Medicaid (HR 0.866, 95% CI 0.823-0.910) or whether they lived in expansion states (HR 0.818, 95% CI 0.758-0.884).

Racial disparities significantly impact thyroid carcinoma diagnosis and treatment in the United States but have improved over time. Both expansion and non-expansion states had improved survival outcomes over time, and suggesting analysis of the ACA's long-term impact and ability to address health inequities is still warranted.

3 Laryngoscope, 134:4421-4430, 2024.