Differential Glioma Mortality and Grading in Disaggregated Asian American Subgroups: Insights from SEER 2000-2020
Sukhman Parhar1, Yangyiran Xie1, Shreya Gunda1, Xinran Qi1, Kekoa Taparra1, Armaan Jamal1, George Hung1, Nicholas Kikuta1, Adrian Bacong1, Gloria Kim1, Latha Palaniappan1, Malathi Srinivasan1, Reena Thomas2
1Stanford University, 2Stanford Center for Academic Medicine
Objective:
To highlight the heterogeneity of glioma grade and mortality rates in disaggregated Asian American subgroups, using the registration information of cancer from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database from 2000 to 2020.
Background:
Glioma is a prominent form of brain tumor and has different prognoses across different racial groups. However, there is a lack of glioma prevalence and mortality data among Asian subgroups.
Design/Methods:

We conducted a retrospective cohort study employing the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) cancer registration data from 2000-2020. We compared Asian American (AA) patients with the Non-Hispanic White (NHW) group. We further disaggregated the AA group geographically: East Asian (EA; encompassing Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), South Asian (SA; comprising Indian, and Pakistani), and Southeast Asian (SEA; including Filipino, Vietnamese, Laotian, Hmong, Cambodian). Our analysis employed Logistic and Competitive Risk regressions, yielding adjusted Odds Ratios (aORs) and adjusted Hazards Ratios (aHR) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). We considered patient characteristics (age, sex, race/ethnicity, rurality, income, and survival months), and cancer attributes (grade, stage, metastases, and diagnosis year).


Results:

The results revealed that SA (p = 0.009) and SEA (p = 0.028) backgrounds are significantly associated with higher glioma grading in our multivariate logistic regression model. When adjusted for age and sex, the survival likelihood of various AA subgroups with glioma exhibited significant temporal variations. The survival probability at 100 months of follow-up ranged from around 50% for the Other Asian subgroup to less than 25% for East, South, and Southwest Asians.

Conclusions:

This study highlights the intricate interplay among the varying prevalence, severity, and prognosis of glioma across different AA subgroups. This emphasizes the critical need for tailored interventions and targeted research efforts.

10.1212/WNL.0000000000206661