Race/ethnicity and the receipt of watchful waiting for the initial management of prostate cancer

Abstract   INTRODUCTION: Several recent studies have noted that African Americans disproportionately receive “watchful waiting” for the initial management of their prostate cancer. To determine whether racial/ethnic differences in the receipt of watchful waiting are explained by differences in clinical presentation and life expectancy at the time of diagnosis, we examined Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare data for men diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1994 to 1996. METHODS: Race/ethnicity, comorbidity, stage, grade, age, and expected lifespan and their association with the receipt of watchful waiting were examined in multivariate logistic regression analyses. Race-stratified logistic regression analyses were also used to examine racial/ethnic variation in the association of clinical and demographic factors with the receipt of watchful waiting among African-American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white men.