Chronic lymphocytic leukemia in African Americans

Abstract

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most prevalent leukemia in the United States with almost 4390 attributable deaths per year. Epidemiologic data compiled by the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program identifies important differences in incidence and survival for African Americans with CLL. Although the incidence of CLL is lower among African Americans than among Caucasians (4.6 and 6.2 per 100 000 men, respectively), age-adjusted survival is inferior. African American patients with CLL are almost twice as likely to die from a CLL-related complication in the first 5 years after diagnosis as are Caucasian patients with CLL. The biologic basis for these observations is almost entirely unexplored, and a comprehensive clinical analysis of African American patients with CLL is lacking. This is the subject of the present review.

Keywords:

• Chronic lymphocytic leukemia
• African Americans
• race
• ethnicity
• health care disparities
• outcomes

Acknowledgements

C. C. Coombs is supported by a Faculty Resident Research Grant, funded by the Department of Medicine at Duke University. J. B. Weinberg is supported by Biomarker Factory and the Veterans Affairs Research Service. M. C. Lanasa is supported by a NCI Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award (1K08CA134919).

Potential conflict of interest

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at www.informahealthcare.com/lal.