OBJECTIVES:

Studies conducted up to two decades ago, suggest that sociodemographic characteristics affect bladder cancer mortality. African American race seems to be a strong predictor of poor survival. Female patients have higher bladder cancer mortality. The objective of this study is to examine recent data for sociodemographic differences in all-cause mortality among bladder cancer patients.

METHODS:

Patients with bladder cancer diagnosis between January 01, 2006, and January 31, 2022 were studied retrospectively from Precision Point Specialty Analytics (EMR) database, for sociodemographic differences. Log rank odds test, Chi-square test and Cox regression analysis were performed to analyze the association between all-cause survival rate and key explanatory variables specifically gender and race, controlling for age at diagnosis, tumor type and Medicare Region.

RESULTS:

Among 5,844 bladder cancer patients, 4486 were male, 1358 were females, 4801 Caucasian American, 299 African American, and 744 Other. The mean and median age at diagnosis was 51 years, with a mode of 53 years. 5, 10 and 15-year survival rates in females were better than males (p=0.0004) with no difference in survival rates across race (p=0.4616). More Caucasian American men and women than African Americans were diagnosed with bladder cancer (p=0.0156). Females diagnosed with bladder cancer had a lower risk of all-cause mortality compared to males, hazard ratio of 0.68 (p=0.0007). African Americans and patients belonging to other races had almost the same risk of all-cause mortality when compared to Caucasian American counterparts, hazard ratios 1.022 (p=0.9193) and 1.084 (p=0.5806) respectively.

CONCLUSIONS:

A strong statistical association exists between gender and all-cause mortality in bladder cancer patients. Compared to females, males had lower survival rates. No association was observed between all-cause mortality in bladder cancer patients and race. This underscores the need to further investigate disparity in bladder cancer specific mortality due to sociodemographic, socioeconomic, and racial differences.