Racial disparities among the use of prediagnostic MRI for the detection of prostate cancer shrank between 2012 and 2019, though geographic disparities remained, according to a study published Sept. 23 in JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Researchers from Philadelphia-based Thomas Jefferson University’s Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center and Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai’s Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute analyzed Medicare data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program of 90,908 prostate cancer patients from between 2012 and 2019 for the study.
Here are five notes from their analysis:
- The use of prediagnostic MRI for the detection of prostate cancer increased from 3.8% to 32.6%.
- Disparity between the use of prediagnostic MRI among non-hispanic Black and non-hispanic white patients decreased from 43% to 20%.
- Compared to urban residents, rural residents were 35% less likely to undergo prediagnostic MRI.
U.S. Census Central region residents were 49% less likely to undergo prediagnostic MRI compared to residents in the U.S. Census West region. - No disparities in prediagnostic MRI use were found between individuals ages 64-75 and individuals age 75 and older.
- “Targeted public health interventions should focus on geographical factors because urban or rural designations, and U.S. region [residency] were associated with the most prominent disparities,” the study authors wrote.
Read the full study here.
