Race/ethnicity and the receipt of watchful waiting for the initial management of prostate cancer.

INTRODUCTION: Several recent studies have noted that African Americans disproportionately receive "watchful waiting" for the initial management of their prostate cancer. To determine whether racial/ethnic differences in the receipt of watchful waiting are explained by differences in clinical presentation and life expectancy at the time of diagnosis, we examined Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare data for men diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1994 to 1996.

METHODS: Race/ethnicity, comorbidity, stage, grade, age, and expected lifespan and their association with the receipt of watchful waiting were examined in multivariate logistic regression analyses. Race-stratified logistic regression analyses were also used to examine racial/ethnic variation in the association of clinical and demographic factors with the receipt of watchful waiting among African-American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white men.

RESULTS: African-American (odds ratio [OR], 1.4; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.3 to 1.6) and Hispanic men (OR, 1.3; 95% CI, 1.1 to 1.5) were significantly more likely than non-Hispanic white men to receive watchful waiting in a multivariate model adjusted for age, comorbidity, stage, grade, and life expectancy. Advanced stage and grade, lower life expectancy, older age, and high comorbidity indices were also significantly associated with an increase in the odds of receipt of watchful waiting in multivariate analyses. In general, the association between the receipt of watchful waiting and the clinical characteristics (i.e., stage, grade, and age) were similar for the three racial/ethnic groups. In race-stratified logistic regression analyses, life expectancy was associated with an increase in the odds of receiving watchful waiting but results were statistically significant for whites only. There was also a statistically significant increase in the odds of receiving watchful waiting for African-American and white men with high comorbidity indices but not Hispanic men. The odds of receiving watchful waiting were also higher for African-American and Hispanic men who resided in census tracts where a large percentage of residents had not completed high school than for white men who resided in similar census tracts.

CONCLUSION: The disproportionate receipt of watchful waiting among African Americans and Hispanics is not completely explained by racial/ethnic variation in clinical characteristics or life expectancy as measured in this study. These data suggest that there are other factors that contribute to racial/ethnic differences in receipt of watchful waiting that warrant investigation.