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Sam Cykert, MD
Sam Cykert, MD
Geni Eng, DrPH
Geni Eng, DrPH

Results from a study published Feb. 4 in the journal Cancer Medicine show that a pragmatic system-based intervention within cancer treatment centers can eliminate existing disparities in treatment and outcomes for black patients with early-stage lung cancer across the U.S.

Treatment rates prior to this three-part intervention were 78 percent for white patients versus 69 percent for black patients. With the intervention in place, treatment rates climbed to 95 percent for white patients and 96.5 percent for black patients.

“These results show promise for all cancer treatment centers,” said UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Samuel Cykert, MD, professor of medicine at the UNC School of Medicine, adjunct professor of health policy and management at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and co-principal investigator for the trial. “One of our participating institutions, Cone Health, in Greensboro, North Carolina, is working toward permanently implementing this intervention into its breast and lung cancer care, and we would like to do further testing with all cancer patient populations.”

Cykert and his colleagues previously conducted studies in 2005 and 2009 to find out why race disparities in cancer treatment exist. They found that multiple reasons contribute to the overall reduction in treatment.

“We found an implicit bias with many clinicians that made them less willing to take the same risks with patients who were different from them,” Cykert said. “A black and a white patient of the same age could require the same surgery, have the same comorbidities, have the same income and insurance, yet white patients were more likely to receive the surgery and get their cancer treated.”

Cykert said they additionally found that black cancer patients without a regular source of care might have trust issues or miscommunications with physicians, leading them to drop out of treatment altogether. They also found that denial of their diagnosis played a role in whether some patients sought treatment.

“With that knowledge, we wanted to build a system that pointed out these lapses in care or communication in real time to help us track patients who otherwise would drop off the grid,” said Cykert.

The intervention consisted of three parts – a real-time warning system derived from electronic health records, race-specific feedback to clinical teams on treatment completion rates and a nurse navigator to engage with patients throughout treatment.

The real-time warning system notified nurse navigators when a patient missed an appointment or treatment milestone. The navigator then reached out to the patient to reengage and bring them back in for treatment. The nurse navigators were encouraged to become familiar with patients and build trust in case of a missed appointment, miscommunication between doctor and patient or other circumstance that created a potential barrier to care.

Cykert says he and colleagues came up with the intervention model with help from the Greensboro Health Disparities Collaborative, an academic-community partnership experienced in community-based participatory research. Their goals were to create elements of real-time transparency, race-specific accountability and enhanced patient-centered communication.

Cykert’s team recruited patients ages 18 to 85 years from two multi-institutional prospective trials using identical interventions. Nearly 240 patients were enrolled in an American Cancer Society-sponsored study, and about 120 lung cancer patients enrolled in a study sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. Cykert was principal investigator in the first trial, and co-principal investigator in the second trial, with UNC Lineberger’s Geni Eng, DrPH, professor of health behavior at the Gillings School, co-author of the Cancer Medicine article and a national expert in community-based participatory research.

“Our innovative system change intervention was informed by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond’s anti-racism framework,” Eng noted. “All members of our Collaborative must complete a two-day training on this framework, conducted by the Racial Equity Institute, so that we can have a common vocabulary and understanding of institutional racism as we develop research questions and design studies.”

Along with the UNC Lineberger and Cone Health Cancer Center, East Carolina University’s Leo Jenkins Cancer Center, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Hillman Cancer Center participated in the trial.

Researchers are in the process of submitting a grant proposal with the National Cancer Institute to implement this intervention to cover whole cancer center populations rather than study individual patients alone.

The study was supported in part by grants from the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society.

No authors or acknowledged contributors had any conflicts of interest to disclose.

Media Contact: Mark Derewicz, 984-974-1915, mark.derewicz@unchealth.unc.edu