Abstract B049: Investigating standard of care treatments for cancers and their efficacy in Pacific Islander populations
Authors: Salas-Escabillas Daniel J. , Sowizral Nicholas A. , McNally Sarah , Panapasa Sela V. 
Published: December 2023

Lung, Colorectal, and Pancreatic cancers are among the deadliest due to lack of early detection methods and few effective treatments. Among these cancers, patients who come from White or Black backgrounds have been shown to have the highest incidence and mortality when compared to other racial groups including Pacific Islanders. Although, most data aggregate Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders together, previous studies show that the trends in cancer rates and treatment efficacy is drastically different among these two groups. The Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEERs) Program conducted by the NIH is one such database that shows Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders as having the lowest incidence and mortality for all three of the top deadly cancers. The SEER is a database that collects cancer statistics from 33 different registries including Hawai'i, four California registries, Alaska, Texas and Utah, which are states with the highest populations of Pacific Islanders.  The SEER also identifies White and Black Patients to have the highest incidence of Prostate Cancer but former studies have shown that Pacific Islanders surpass White non-Hispanics which the SEER establishes as the second highest in prostate cancer incidence. By disaggregating the data to analyze Pacific Islanders compared to other racial and ethnic groups, we can determine the true trends of cancer rates and mortality in the Pacific Islander Community. Through this work we will also determine if the standard of care treatments available to patients of these most deadly cancers is effective in those with a Pacific Islander background. Our data and data from other studies have shown that standard of care treatments are more effective in patients of European descent and are not as effective with patients from other communities due to the trials and tools used focusing a majority on caucasian patients. This is due to afflictions such as diabetes, obesity, history of smoking or drinking, and other criteria that may disqualify patients for clinical trials and treatments, however the communities most effected and have the highest prevalence of these criteria are people of color including Pacific Islanders.  Our work is meant to do two things 1) lay a foundation to start collecting disaggregated data to get true trends of cancer statistics and 2) to understand the efficacy of treatments on the Pacific Islander community that is usually collected with Asian Americans which may mask the true effect on the microminority community of Pacific Islanders. 

Citation Format: Daniel J. Salas-Escabillas, Nicholas A. Sowizral, Sarah McNally, Sela V. Panapasa. Investigating standard of care treatments for cancers and their efficacy in Pacific Islander populations [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 16th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2023 Sep 29-Oct 2;Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2023;32(12 Suppl):Abstract nr B049.