Even Low-Risk Prostate Cancer Outcomes Worse for African-American Men, Study Finds

African-American men with even the lowest-risk variants of prostate cancer have a higher likelihood of poor treatment outcomes, according to a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Researchers at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University analyzed approximately 1,800 patient records from men of different racial backgrounds who had undergone radial prostatectomy. They found that compared to the white men in the study, African-American men had higher rates of recurrence (14.8 percent vs. 6.9 percent), positive surgical margins (9.8 percent vs. 5.8 percent) and tumors with aggressive pathology (14.1 percent vs. 7.7 percent).

The groups had similar metastasis-free, cancer-specific and overall survival rates.  

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