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In recent decades, 5-year survival in women with advanced ovarian cancer (stages III and IV) has risen in white women but fallen in black women. Some have attributed this inconsistency to more-advanced disease at presentation in black women. Investigators used Medicare and federal cancer surveillance data to assess whether this racial discrepancy results from differential probability of receiving guideline-recommended treatment (cytoreductive surgery plus ≥6 cycles of systemic therapy; termed “complete care” in this study).
Of 4695 patients aged ≥66 and insured by Medicare, 5% were black and the rest were white. Black women were more likely than whites to present with stage IV disease and higher comorbidity scores. Treatment in black women w…