MONDAY, Sept. 19 (HealthDay News) -- The racial disparity in the utilization rates of minimally invasive radical prostatectomy (MIRP) in the United States is decreasing, according to a study published online Sept. 6 in Cancer.
Quoc-Dien Trinh, M.D., from the University of Montreal Health Center, and colleagues investigated the utilization rate of MIRP in patients of different races who underwent MIRP and open radical prostatectomy (ORP) between 2001 and 2007. The proportions and temporal trends in race distribution between MIRP and ORP were assessed, and adjusted for multiple variables.
The investigators found that, of the 65,148 radical prostatectomies performed, 3,581 were MIRPs. A total of 11.4, 78.8, and 9.9 percent of patients were African-American, Caucasians, and others, respectively. The proportions of patients treated with MIRP annually between 2001 and 2007 were 2.2, 0.9, 2.6, 7.2, 4.7, 9.3, and 11.6 percent, respectively, for Caucasians, and 0.8, 0.3, 1.4, 4.4, 3.5, 9.0, and 8.4 percent, respectively, for African-Americans. In a multivariate analysis, African-American patients were 14 percent less likely to undergo MIRP than Caucasians. After period stratification in the years 2001 to 2005 versus 2006 to 2007, African-Americans were 22 and 11 percent less likely to undergo MIRP in the early and more recent time period, respectively.
"The primary implication of the current report consists of highly encouraging findings that indicate improvement in MIRP utilization rates in African-Americans versus Caucasians," the authors write.
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