A Literature Review of Racial Disparities in Prostate Cancer Research

Background: Despite recent awareness of institutional racism, there are still important racial disparities in prostate cancer medical research. We investigated the historical development of research on racial disparities and bias.

Methods: PubMed was searched for the term 'prostate cancer race' and added key terms associated with racial disparity. As an indicator of scientific interest in the topic, we analyzed whether the number of publications increased linearly as an indicator of growing interest. The linearity is expressed as R².

Results: The general search term "prostate cancer race" yielded 4507 publications. More specific search terms with ≥12 publications showing a higher scientific interest were found after 2005. The terms with the most publications when added to the general term were "genetic" (n = 1011), "PSA" (n = 995), and "detection" (n = 861). There was a linear increase in publications for "prostate cancer race" (R² = 0.75) since 1980. Specific terms added to the general terms with a high linear increase (R² ≥ 0.7) were "screening" (R² = 0.82), "detection" (R² = 0.72), "treatment access" (R² = 0.71), and "trial underrepresentation" (R² = 0.71). However, only a few studies have investigated its association with sexual activity. A combination with "sexual" showed 157 publications but only two years with ≥12 publications/year.

Conclusion: The terms "genetic", "PSA", and "detection" have been the focus of recent research on racial differences in prostate cancer. We found that old stereotypes are still being mentioned but seem to find little interest in the current literature. Further research interest was found in "treatment access". Recently, interest in socioeconomic factors has decreased.