Racial inequality anger as Asians wait five days longer for cancer diagnosis

ASIANS have to wait five days longer than their white counterparts for cancer diagnosis in England, in what campaigners have called “absolutely unacceptable” racial inequality.

The median waiting period for a white person for diagnosis after presenting symptoms to a GP is 55 days. However, it is 60 days

for Asians, a review of the primary care database by the University of Exeter and the Guardian revealed.

This means the median waiting time for Asians is nine per cent longer than for white people. It is still worse for black people, who have to wait for an average of 61 days for diagnosis.

Analysis of data from 126,000 cases in England between 2006 and 2016 covered the four most common cancers – lung, breast, prostate and colorectal – and three commonly diagnosed types in ethnic minorities: oesophagogastric, myeloma and ovarian.

It found that ethnic minority people wait longer than white patients for the diagnosis of six out of seven cancers.

The difference in waiting time varied widely, the study said. White people wait for 53 days to get a diagnosis for oesophagogastric cancer, while it is almost double (100 days) for Asians.

In the case of myeloma, the third most common type of blood cancer, the median wait time for white people is 93 days. For black people, it is 127 days.

For lung cancer, however, the median wait time is 129 days for white patients, 115 days for Asian and 103 days for black patients.

Jabeer Butt, the Race Equality Foundation chief executive, said findings were “not surprising”, although they were “deeply worrying, with potentially life-altering consequences for the health of black and Asian people”.

He told the Guardian there was an urgent need to address the “underlying factors holding black and Asian patients back from getting a fair chance when it comes to fighting cancer.”

The University of Exeter researcher Tanimola Martins said the analysis helped explain the reasons for “poorer outcomes for some cancers” in ethnic minority patients.