When Hispanic/Latino people are diagnosed with skin cancer, their tumors are 17 percent larger than tumors in non-Hispanic White patients, a new study shows.
For the study, researchers analyzed a total of 3,486 Mohs micrographic surgeries of basal cell, squamous cell, and basosquamous cell carcinomas from three major institutions in Los Angeles County. They also found that defect sizes of squamous cell carcinomas were 80 percent larger than defect sizes of basal cell carcinomas in Hispanic patients. By contrast, defect sizes of squamous cell carcinomas were only 25 percent larger than defect sizes of basal cell carcinomas in in white patients.
Compared to patients with Medicare, patients with health maintenance organization and Medicaid/health maintenance organization had 22 percent and 52 percent larger defect sizes, respectively, whereas patients with preferred provider organization, had 10 percent smaller defect sizes, the study found.
“Disparities regarding nonmelanoma skin cancer exist between patients with skin of color and White patients,” conclude researchers led by Laura Blumenthal, MD a dermatologist in Thousand Oaks, Calif. “Patients and the medical community need to be cognizant that skin cancer can develop in patients regardless of their race and ethnicity.”
The findings appear in theJournal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
