Racial inequalities in advanced clinical staging in women with breast cancer treated at a referral hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

The objective of this study was to analyze the association between race/skin color and clinical staging in women with breast cancer at a referral hospital for cancer treatment of the Brazilian National Health System. This is a cross-sectional study of 863 women aged 18 or more, with incident breast cancer and clinical staging up to IIIC enrolled at a cancer referral hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and interviewed between November 2016 and October 2018. Sociodemographic, lifestyle and clinical variables were evaluated. We used the propensity score with the weighting technique to balance comparison groups for potential confounders. The association between race/skin color and clinical staging was analyzed using generalized estimation equations after balancing. A significance level of 5% was adopted in all analyzes. We observed that 35.9% of women declared themselves white; 21.3%, black; and 42.8%, brown. Black women were 63% more likely to have stage II and III when compared to white women (OR=1.63; 95% CI 1.01-2.65). In conclusion, black women are diagnosed with more advanced tumors when compared to white women.