Racial Disparity Among Adults With Oral Cancer Persists in the U.S. from 2000 to 2017

ABSTRACT

Background: We investigated trends in incidence rates, stage at diagnosis and relative survival rates among adults with oral cancer in relation to race in the context of previously uncovered cancer-specific health disparities.

Methods: We analyzed 2000—2017 SEER data among adults with oral cancer from 18 registries. We used SEER*Stat to compute proportions for each oral cancer site by stage at diagnosis and race and five-year relative survival rates by sex, cancer site, stage at diagnosis, age and race and explored trends over time.

Results: Among 95,040 oral cancer cases reported to SEER, the most prevalent site was the tongue. While the rate among Black men decreased from 12.9 to 8/100,000, Blacks had significantly higher proportions of oral cancer that had spread at diagnosis than whites. Survival rates were substantially lower among Blacks than whites.

Conclusions: The steep decline in oral cancer incidence rates in Black men is encouraging, although the persistent racial disparity with respect to late diagnosis and poor survival is alarming, requiring targeted interventions.

Practical implications: Highlighting racial disparities with respect to oral cancer to increase awareness is the first step in developing interventions to address these disparities.

Key words::

• Oral cancer
• racial disparity
• survival
• stage at diagnosis
• epidemiology

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Abrar Bakhsh

Abrar Bakhsh, DDS, is a resident in the postgraduate oral medicine and masters in oral and craniofacial sciences programs at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Dentistry. Conflict of Interest Disclosure: None reported.

Caroline H. Shiboski

Caroline H. Shiboski, DDS, MPH, PhD, is the Leland A. and Gladys K. Barber Distinguished Professor in Dentistry and chair of the department of orofacial sciences. She practices in the Sol Silverman Oral Medicine Clinic in the School of Dentistry at the University of California, San Francisco. Conflict of Interest Disclosure: None reported.