Exploring Disease Biology in Hispanic Versus Non-Hispanic Patients with Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) to Explain Survival Disparities

Background: DLBCL is the most common adult NHL and despite significant advancements, outcomes in ethnic minorities remain suboptimal. Factors responsible for these disparities in ethnic minorities, especially variability in clinical and pathological features with evaluation of patient-level data have not been studied.

Methods: A multi-institutional database of DLBCL patients seen at Mayo Clinic in Florida, University of Miami and University of Southern California between 1996-2016 was developed. Patient demographics, clinical disease characteristics and details of DLBCL immunophenotype [CD10, MUM1, BCL6 (Han's classification), Ki 67, MYC, BCL2) were reviewed. Comparisons between Hispanic and Non-Hispanic patients were made by Chi-square, Fischer's exact and Signed rank tests, where applicable. Patients with missing data on a certain feature were not included in the statistical analysis of that specific characteristic.

Results: A total of 966 DLBCL patients with 69 Hispanics and 752 non-Hispanics were identified. These included 52% males (N=36) and 48% females (N=33) in Hispanics versus 58% males (N=436) and 42% females (N=316) in Non-Hispanics (p=0.35). Median age at diagnosis was significantly lower at 61 years (range 27-89) in Hispanics versus 66 in non-Hispanics (p=0.014). Extranodal disease was seen significantly more commonly in Hispanics (74%) than in non-Hispanics (60%) (p=0.037). There was no significant difference in disease stage at presentation between the two cohorts (p=0.189) although the proportion of patients with stage III and IV disease was higher among Hispanics (80.4%) as compared to non-Hispanics (68.5%). Similarly there was no significant difference in presence of primary CNS DLBCL at diagnosis between the two groups (p=0.74). GCB phenotype per the Hans' classification was seen in 59% (N=29) in both, Hispanics and Non-Hispanics (N=241) (p=0.99). Similarly, the median ki67 index of 80% was seen in both cohorts (p=0.48). MYC was positive in 59% in Hispanics versus only 37.5% in non-Hispanics (p=0.024). BCL2 expression by itself and also combined BCL2 and MYC double expression were not significantly different between the two groups (p=0.58 and p=0.11, respectively). Median overall survival (OS) was 22.5 months in Hispanics compared 54.9 months in Non-Hispanics (p<0.0001) (Figure 1).

Conclusion: Survival outcome disparities in racial and ethnic minorities have been previously reported from population-based analyses. Lack of patient-level clinical data makes these analyses hypothesis generating, but not conclusive. We confirmed some prior findings including younger age at diagnosis for Hispanics with DLBCL. We also reported greater incidence of extranodal as well as stage III or IV disease at the time of presentation among Hispanics which may contribute to poor outcomes in this population. From DLBCL pathology standpoint, we found increased expression of MYC among Hispanics but no other significant immunohistochemical differences including double expression or non-GCB phenotype. The inferior OS despite uniform treatment practices at large Cancer Centers suggest multifactorial influences on patient outcomes which may at least in part include some of the differences we report here.

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