Leukemia survival dependent on social factors, like if you’re single
A study shows that patients who were single or divorced; patients who were uninsured or were Medicaid beneficiaries; and patients who lived in areas with lower income had substantially elevated risks of dying prematurely from acute myelogenous leukemia (AML).
“We believe these three factors indicate lack of material and social support preventing young patients from successfully walking the long and difficult road towards a cure,” said Uma Borate, MD, lead author of the study, and assistant professor in the UAB Division of Hematology and Oncology.
Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have analyzed 5,541 patients younger than 65 years of age to show that, in addition to age and disease characteristics, other “non-biological” patient characteristics also matter. The study is the largest to date to look at socioeconomic factors in outcomes of younger patients with AML.
Published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings indicate that efforts are needed to address the social factors that impact critical aspects of health in these patients.
The findings show that factors not necessarily related to care can have significant impacts on AML patients’ outcomes.
“As physicians, we often emphasize more of the biology of the cancer, especially with the recent focus on personalized medicine. But we need to pay the same attention to resources available to our patients, as this greatly impacts their chances to survive leukemia,” said senior author Luciano Jose Costa, MD, PhD, associate professor in the UAB Division of Hematology and Oncology.
