- Everything You Need to Know About Breast Density, From the Experts
- First Doses of Mpox Vaccine Reach Africa, But Many More Are Needed
- Seeing Through: Scientists Use Food Dye to Render Mouse Skin Transparent
- Gun Deaths to Children and Teens Have Risen in Almost All States
- Too Much Light at Night Linked to Higher Alzheimer’s Risk
- Almost 1 in 4 U.S. Adults Under 40 Have High Blood Pressure
- Exposure to PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Pregnancy Could Boost Long-Term Obesity Risk
- Cuffs on At-Home Blood Pressure Monitors Don’t Fit Some Patients
- Brain’s Wiring May Trigger Depression in Some People
- Saltwater Drops in Nose Could Shorten Kids’ Colds
Kids From Poorer Families Less Likely to Survive Cancer
![](https://ladylively.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/AdobeStock_416758085 (1)-300x336.jpeg)
Children from poor families are less likely to survive cancer, particularly if they are not white, a new study reports.
A childhood cancer patient’s risk of dying within five years of their diagnosis increases 4% for every one-point increase in their neighborhood’s Area Deprivation Index (ADI), researchers found.
The ADI uses 17 factors to measure a patient’s background, with higher scores indicating greater economic uncertainty, researchers said.
Results also showed that non-white children had an increased risk of death from cancer.
“Despite significant progress in the treatment of pediatric cancer, socioeconomic factors continue to cause outcome disparities,” said researcher Dr. Dai Chung, a professor of surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
For the study, researchers analyzed Texas Cancer Registry records of nearly 3,900 children diagnosed with tumors between 1995 and 2019. The average age at diagnosis was 4 and a half years old.
Poor and minority kids also had an increased risk of their cancer spreading to other parts of their bodies, as well as children living in rural areas or areas near the Texas-Mexico border.
That could be because those groups are more likely to have a delay in their cancer treatment, researchers said.
For example, among all sarcoma patients the median time between diagnosis and start of treatment was three days.
But treatment began more than 51 days later for Black children compared to white kids, and 34 days later for rural kids compared to city children, the study found.
The new study was published recently in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
“Our hope is that our study findings can motivate improvements in racial and socioeconomic diversity in pediatric cancer clinical trials, increase funding for disparities in outcomes research, and implement ground-level changes that will make health care more accessible for all patients,” Chung said.
More information
The National Cancer Institute has more on childhood cancers.
SOURCE: UT Southwestern, news release, July 24, 2024
Source: HealthDay
Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.