African American Patients Still More Likely To Die From Colon Cancer Than Whites.

Colon cancer is one of the major causes of cancer death in the U.S.  Although survival for all groups of patients has improved, African Americans (AA) still do not do as well as whites.  An analysis of of clinical trials in which white and AA patients got the same treatment for their colon cancer showed that the AA patients were more likley to have recurrences of their cancer and to die from their disease.  The reasons for this are not clear, but may be related to the care they received outside of the trials.