A recent report from the Institute of Medicine documents widespread racial disparities in medical treatment and health outcomes. Such disparities are particularly apparent among patients with cancer. For many types of cancer, black Americans have markedly higher cancer-specific mortality rates than members of other racial and ethnic groups-more than 2-fold higher in some instances. Excess cancer mortality in this group is partly attributable to higher cancer incidence rates. However, increased cancer mortality among black patients is also due in large part to worse prognoses among those already diagnosed.
展开▼
