Racial Differences in Patient-Reported Symptoms and Adherence to Adjuvant Endocrine Therapy Among Women With Early-Stage, Hormone Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer

IMPORTANCE Adjuvant endocrine therapy (AET) reduces breast cancer recurrence, but symptom burden is a key barrier to adherence. Black women have lower AET adherence and worse health outcomes than White women. OBJECTIVE To investigate the association between symptom burden and AET adherence differences by race. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS A retrospective cohort study using electronic health records with patient-reported data from a large cancer center in the US. Patients included Black and White women initiating AET therapy for early-stage breast cancer from August 2007 to December 2015 whowere followed for 1 year from AET initiation. Sixty symptoms classified into 7 physical and 2 psychological symptom clusters were evaluated. For each cluster, the number of symptoms with moderate severity at baseline, and symptoms with 3-point or greater increases during AET were counted. Adherence was measured as the proportion of days covered by AET during the first-year follow-up. Multivariable regressions for patients' adherence adjusting for race, symptom measures, sociodemographic characteristics, and clinical characteristics were conducted. Kitagawa-BlinderOaxaca decomposition was used to quantify racial differences in adherence explained by symptoms and patient characteristics. Analyses were conducted from July 2021 to January 2022. EXPOSURES Physical and psychological symptoms at baseline and changes during AET. RESULTS Among 559 patients (168 [30.1%] Black and 391 [69.9%] White; mean [SD] age 65.5 [12.1] years), Black women received diagnoses younger (mean [SD] age at diagnosis, 58.7 [13.7] vs 68.5 [10.0] years old) than White women, with more advanced stages (30 Black participants [17.9%] vs 31 White participants [7.9%] had stage III disease at diagnosis), and lived in areas with fewer adults attaining high school education (mean [SD], 78.8% [ 7.8%] vs 84.0%[9.3%]). AET adherence in the first year was 78.8% for Black and 82.3% for White women. Black women reported higher severity in most symptom clusters than White women. Neuropsychological, vasomotor, musculoskeletal, cardiorespiratory, distress, and despair symptoms at baseline and increases during the follow-up were associated with 1.2 to 2.6 percentage points decreases in adherence, which corresponds to 4 to 9 missed days receiving AET in the first year. After adjusting for psychological symptoms, being Black was associated with 6.5 percentage points higher adherence than being White. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this cohort study, severe symptoms were associated with lower AET adherence. Black women had lower adherence rates that were explained by their higher symptom burden and baseline characteristics. These findings suggest that better symptom management with a focus on psychological symptoms could improve AET adherence and reduce racial disparities in cancer outcomes.

Automated summary

This study investigates the association between symptom burden and adherence to adjuvant endocrine therapy (AET) among Black and White women with breast cancer. The findings show that severe symptoms are associated with lower AET adherence, and Black women have lower adherence rates due to their higher symptom burden and baseline characteristics. Better symptom management, particularly focusing on psychological symptoms, could improve AET adherence and reduce racial disparities in cancer outcomes.