Socioeconomic Inequalities in Lung Cancer Treatment: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Lynne F Forrest, Jean Adams, Helen Wareham, Greg Rubin and Martin White

PLOS Medicine, 2013, vol. 10, issue 2, 1-25

Abstract: In a systematic review and meta-analysis, Lynne Forrest and colleagues find that patients with lung cancer who are more socioeconomically deprived are less likely to receive surgical treatment, chemotherapy, or any type of treatment combined, compared with patients who are more socioeconomically well off, regardless of cancer stage or type of health care system. Background: Intervention-generated inequalities are unintended variations in outcome that result from the organisation and delivery of health interventions. Socioeconomic inequalities in treatment may occur for some common cancers. Although the incidence and outcome of lung cancer varies with socioeconomic position (SEP), it is not known whether socioeconomic inequalities in treatment occur and how these might affect mortality. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of existing research on socioeconomic inequalities in receipt of treatment for lung cancer. Methods and Findings: MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Scopus were searched up to September 2012 for cohort studies of participants with a primary diagnosis of lung cancer (ICD10 C33 or C34), where the outcome was receipt of treatment (rates or odds of receiving treatment) and where the outcome was reported by a measure of SEP. Forty-six papers met the inclusion criteria, and 23 of these papers were included in meta-analysis. Socioeconomic inequalities in receipt of lung cancer treatment were observed. Lower SEP was associated with a reduced likelihood of receiving any treatment (odds ratio [OR] = 0.79 [95% CI 0.73 to 0.86], p

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001376 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/fil ... 01376&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pmed00:1001376

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001376

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS Medicine from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosmedicine ().