Socio-economic Factors Affect the Outcome of Soft Tissue Sarcoma: an Analysis of SEER Data

Background: This study analyzed whether socio-economic factors affect the cause specific survival of soft tissuesarcoma (STS).
Methods: Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) soft tissue sarcoma (STS) datawere used to identify potential socio-economic disparities in outcome. Time to cause specific death was computedwith Kaplan-Meier analysis. Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests and Cox proportional hazard analysis were used forunivariate and multivariate tests, respectively. The areas under the receiver operating curve were computed forpredictors for comparison.
Results: There were 42,016 patients diagnosed STS from 1973 to 2009. The meanfollow up time (S.D.) was 66.6 (81.3) months. Stage, site, grade were significant predictors by univariate tests.Race and rural-urban residence were also important predictors of outcome. These five factors were all statisticallysignificant with Cox analysis. Rural and African-American patients had a 3-4% disadvantage in cause specificsurvival.
Conclusions: Socio-economic factors influence cause specific survival of soft tissue sarcoma. Ensuringaccess to cancer care may eliminate the outcome disparities.