Certain patients have lower odds of undergoing an interventional radiology service, and it may be partially leading to their death, according to new research published Wednesday.
Black, Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander patients are significantly less likely to undergo an IR procedure for acute, nonseptic pulmonary embolism compared to white patients. However, such differences were eliminated when matching for age, sex or insurance type, experts wrote in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology [1].
Regardless of race, those who underwent an IR treatment had a relative risk reduction ranging between 76% to 84% versus those who did not.
“Matching for primary insurance type eliminates difference in mortality between races [and suggests] socioeconomic status may determine outcomes in acute PE,” Joseph A. Breuer, MD, with University of California Irvine School of Medicine, and colleagues concluded.
For the study, UCI researchers identified all hospitalizations for adults with acute pulmonary embolism, recorded from 2016 to 2019 in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s National Inpatient Sample. They divided the data into those who received IR treatments (such as catheter-directed thrombolysis or mechanical thrombectomy) and those who did not.
The search turned up a total of 14,121 cases of a pulmonary embolism requiring treatment. A larger percentage of white patients (54.7%) underwent IR treatment for acute PE compared to their black (50%), Hispanic (48.3%) and Asian counterparts (45.9%). Black individuals also faced about 18% lower odds of undergoing an IR treatment, versus 22% lower chances for Hispanic patients and 29% among Asian patients (though the latter two were not deemed statistically significant). Black patients also were significantly more likely than white patients to die, regardless of whether they underwent an interventional radiology treatment (with an overall death risk 41% higher).
Breuer et al. conducted their study using data from prior to the pandemic, and it’s possible these numbers have worsened since 2020.
“COVID-19 has played a major impact in the diagnosis and treatment of PE. However, based on published literature the healthcare disparities in access and outcomes have increased with the pandemic,” the authors reported.
Read much more, including potential study limitations, at the link below.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.