Relationship between race and interval to treatment in endometrial cancer

To determine whether the poor prognosis of black women with endometrial adenocarcinoma is due to racial differences in the interval between the onset of abnormal uterine bleeding and hysterectomy.

Clinical records of all 219 patients (176 white, 39 black, four other) who underwent surgical treatment of endometrial cancer during 1990-1993 at our institution were reviewed to obtain information regarding clinicopathologic features. In addition, the interval between the onset of abnormal uterine bleeding and hysterectomy was noted.

Compared with white patients, black women with endometrial cancer had a significantly higher incidence of unfavorable features, including non-endometrioid histology (38 versus 12%), stage III or IV disease (51 versus 19%), grade 3 differentiation (49 versus 18%), and poor survival (P = .003). There was no significant difference in the median interval from onset of abnormal uterine bleeding to hysterectomy between blacks (11.1 weeks) and whites (13.7 weeks), nor was the interval to treatment related to stage, grade, histologic type, myometrial invasion, or survival. In contrast, patients with a history of hormone use had a longer median interval from the onset of abnormal bleeding to treatment compared with patients who had not used hormones (19 versus 10 weeks) (P < .01), and hormone use was associated with favorable clinicopathologic features and survival. Although black women were less likely to have used hormones than white women (13 versus 44%) (P < .001), racial differences in stage, grade, and survival persisted after correcting for hormone use.

This study confirms that black women with endometrial cancer have a poorer outcome than white women; however, this does not appear to be due to a difference in the interval from onset of abnormal uterine bleeding to hysterectomy.