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In Reply:

British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

We thank Dr Theuer for his comments. We agree that East versus West differences in diagnosis and treatment likely do contribute to disparities in gastric cancer survival. Our retrospective study was designed to assess the prognostic impact of Asian ethnicity in gastric cancer while attempting to control for these differences by studying an ethnically diverse population treated in a fairly homogenous manner at a single North American institution.¹ In our multivariable analysis, Asian ethnicity was not observed to be an independent predictor of improved survival. As stated in our paper, while the study was designed to detect a 35% reduction in risk of death for Asians versus non-Asians, we recognize that our analysis may have been insufficiently powered to detect a smaller effect. We hence concur with Dr Theuer that ethnicity-related differences in tumor biology cannot be entirely excluded by the findings of our study as a potential factor contributing to the disparity in gastric cancer survival between the East and West, though its impact appears to be small.

AUTHOR’S DISCLOSURES OF POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The author indicated no potential conflicts of interest.

REFERENCE

1. Gill S, Shah A, Le N, et al: Asian-ethnicity related differences in gastric cancer presentation and outcome among patients treated at a Canadian cancer center. J Clin Oncol 21:2070–2076, 2003[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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• Ethnicity-Related Gastric Cancer Survival
  Charles P. Theuer
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This Article Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Save to my personal folders Download to citation manager Rights & Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Gill, S. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Gill, S. Related Articles Related Article Social Bookmarking                            What's this?