Dr Abby Statler: African American Patients With AML Exhibit Higher Kidney Test Abnormalities

When we looked at the pre-treatment creatinine data, we found that African Americans were more likely to have abnormal results and white patients were more likely to have normal results—these differences were statistically significant, said Abby Statler, PhD, MPH, MA, research associate at Cleveland Clinic.

Transcript

What did you find in your study of African American patients with AML with abnormal kidney tests?

So, when we looked at the pre-treatment creatinine data, and creatinine measures your kidney function, we found that African Americans were more likely to have abnormal results and white patients are more likely to have normal results—these differences were statistically significant. Additionally, when we looked at creatinine clearance data, again, a measure for kidney function, African Americans again had worse results than the white patient population. Again, suggesting that their kidney function is indeed worse than the white patient population. So, across the full cohort, 56% of the patients had some sort of renal dysfunction; but this proportion was higher among African Americans–63% of which had some sort of renal function abnormality that could have potentially excluded them from a clinical trial, but our outcomes suggest that minor renal dysfunction is not associated with clinical outcomes. Therefore, this might not be a reason alone to be excluding patients from clinical trials.