Increasing rates of surgical treatment and preventing comorbidities may increase breast cancer survival for Aboriginal women

Table 1 Comparison of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women diagnosed with breast cancer in New South Wales 2001-2007

	Aboriginal		Non-Aboriginal		p-value
	n	%	n	%
All women	288	1	27562	99
Age at diagnosis (years)					<0.01
20-49	89	31	6621	24
50-59	75	26	7209	26
60-69	66	23	6446	23
70-79	45	16	4426	16
80+	13	5	2860	10
Place of residence					<0.01
Major cities	138	48	20021	73
Inner regional	90	31	5882	21
Rural^a	60	21	1659	6
Spread of disease					0.04
Localised	133	46	14374	52
Regional	112	39	9652	35
Distant	24	8	1470	5
Unknown	19	7	2066	7
Socioeconomic disadvantage					<0.01
Least disadvantaged	23	8	5968	22
Second least disadvantaged	42	15	6061	22
Third least disadvantaged	35	12	4536	16
Second most disadvantaged	74	26	5515	20
Most disadvantaged	114	40	5482	20
Breast cancer surgical treatment within 12 months of diagnosis					<0.01
No surgical treatment	43	15	3061	11
Local excision/Lumpectomy only	106	37	13650	49
Mastectomy^b	139	48	10851	39
Median (IQR^c) days between diagnosis	15 (4–28)		14 (4–26)		0.27
And first breast cancer surgery
Comorbidities^d		n = 279		N = 26483
Diabetes	49	18	2079	8	<0.01
Cardiovascular disease	20	7	1130	4	0.02
Chronic pulmonary disease	29	10	1012	4	<0.01
Other comorbidities	13	5	1093	4	0.66
No comorbidities recorded	195	70	22317	84	<0.01

^aIncludes outer regional, remote and very remote areas.
^bIncludes mastectomy with or without local excision/lumpectomy.
^cIQR – interquartile range (25th and 75th centile).
^dNumbers were reduced due to absence of linked hospital records during 12 months before and up to 6 months after breast cancer diagnosis. For Aboriginal women 9 did not have a linked record and 1161 non-Aboriginal women did not have a linked record in the time period. Note also that comorbidity categories are not mutually exclusive, so the percentages add to more than 100%.

ISSN: 1471-2407