LSU Health New Orleans Hosts Meeting of North American Cancer Statistics Specialists

June 15, 2023

LSU Health New Orleans’ Louisiana Tumor Registry is hosting the first in-person annual meeting of the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR) since the start of the pandemic, June 20-22, 2023. The three-day conference will take place at the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans.

This year’s theme is Resilience and Recovery: Charting the Path Forward for Cancer Surveillance. After the opening ceremony, which includes remarks from Dr. Xiao-Cheng Wu, Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Louisiana Tumor Registry at LSU Health New Orleans School of Public Health, the annual meeting will feature five plenary sessions with oral presentations and panel discussions, poster presentations, exhibits, committee meetings, a business meeting, and a closing ceremony and awards presentation.

Presentations by LSU Health New Orleans faculty and staff include:

Plenary 1: Highlighting Local Research and COVID-19:

o Social Determinants of Triple Negative Breast Cancer Disparities by Dr. Lucio Miele, Cancer Crusaders Professor and Chair of Genetics

• Obese and Black women are at higher risk of developing these cancers, but they are not at higher risk of dying from them if diagnosed in time.
• New subset of triple-negative breast cancers
• Significant differences in gene expression signatures in tumors between Black and White patients may indicate novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets
• Significant differences in the immune cells, potentially indicating better tumor immunity in Black patients, which suggests including more Black patients in immunotherapy trials

o COVID-19 and Cancer: Inception, Methods, and Outcomes by Dr. Suki Subbiah, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine in Hematology-Oncology

• Patients with cancer and SARS-CoV-2 infection are more likely to have severe COVID-19 and higher mortality than the general population.
• Cancer-specific factors associated with increased COVID-19 severity or 30-day mortality were: diagnosis with a hematologic malignancy, cancer that was recently deemed to be active and progressing, ECOG performance status >0, and receipt of cytotoxic chemotherapy.
• Short-term data demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines are safe and effective in the prevention of severe COVID-19 in cancer patients.
• Some patients with cancer, particularly hematologic malignancies, may have lower seroconversion rates and antibody titers and may require multiple doses.

Concurrent 1.C Using Cancer Surveillance Data to Understand Impacts of Covid-19:

o Effect of Underlying Health Conditions on Racial Differences in COVID-19 Hospitalization among Cancer Patients by Dr. Xiao-Cheng Wu, Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Louisiana Tumor Registry

• Compared to non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic Blacks had a higher prevalence of chronic diseases.
• After adjusting for age, sex, cancer diagnosis year, insurance, poverty, obesity, cancer type, and the number of chronic diseases, the odds of COVID-19 hospitalization were higher for non-Hispanic Blacks than non-Hispanic Whites.
• The number of chronic diseases explained the racial difference.
• Hypertension, diabetes, and renal disease were the top three chronic diseases contributing to the racial disparity.
• Chronic diseases explained about two-fifths of the racial disparity in COVID-19 hospitalization among cancer patients, especially hypertension, diabetes, and chronic renal disease.

Concurrent 2.B - NAACCR Data Confidentiality & Data Release Recommendations:

o A Discussion of Best Practices on Data Release for the NAACCR Community by Lauren Maniscalco, MPH, Louisiana Tumor Registry Liaison (Co-Presenting with Dr. Bozena Morawski of the Cancer Data Registry of Idaho)

• Overview of the current environment surrounding the release of cancer surveillance data for research
• Best practices on the release of cancer surveillance data for research
• Recommendations from attendees regarding three focus areas -- participation in research studies and patient selection/recruitment, the release of restricted data for research and suppression guidelines

Poster presentation:

o HPV vaccination utilization in patients diagnosed with pre-invasive cervical lesions (CIN3) in Louisiana by Louisiana Tumor Registry Authors: Christina Lefante, Meichin Hsieh, Natalie Gomez, Pratibha Shrestha, Xiao-Cheng Wu

• To test the feasibility of assessing vaccination utilization in individuals diagnosed with pre-invasive cervical lesions in Louisiana through access to LINKS
• To begin evaluating the effectiveness of HPV vaccination programs in Louisiana
• Identifying HPV vaccination status through LINKS is feasible.

Full meeting information and the schedule are available here.

Established in 1987, NAACCR is a collaborative umbrella organization whose 100+ members include cancer registries, governmental agencies like the National Cancer Institute and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, professional associations like the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and private groups in North America like Kaiser Permanente who are dedicated to enhancing the quality and use of cancer registry data. All central cancer registries in the United States and Canada are members.

NAACCR develops and promotes uniform data standards for cancer registration; provides education and training; certifies population-based registries; aggregates and publishes data from central cancer registries; and promotes the use of cancer surveillance data and systems for cancer control and epidemiologic research, public health programs, and patient care to reduce the burden of cancer in North America.

LSU Health New Orleans Louisiana Tumor Registry is a statewide population-based cancer registry authorized by law to collect data on all reportable cancer cases occurring among Louisiana residents. A registry serves as an official count of a specific thing and its associated identifying information. The Louisiana Tumor Registry, a participant in the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program and the CDC's National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR), is nationally recognized for its complete, high quality, and timely data. One of only 22 cancer registries in the country comprising NCI’s SEER Program, LSU Health New Orleans’ Louisiana Tumor Registry is considered one of the leading cancer registries in the nation.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans (LSU Health New Orleans) educates Louisiana's health care professionals. The state's health sciences university leader, LSU Health New Orleans includes a School of Medicine with campuses in Baton Rouge and Lafayette, the state's only School of Dentistry, Louisiana's only public School of Public Health, and Schools of Allied Health Professions, Nursing, and Graduate Studies. LSU Health New Orleans faculty take care of patients in public and private hospitals and clinics throughout the region. In the vanguard of biosciences research, the LSU Health New Orleans research enterprise generates jobs and enormous annual economic impact. LSU Health New Orleans faculty have made lifesaving discoveries and continue to work to prevent, advance treatment or cure disease. To learn more, visit http://www.lsuhsc.edu, http://www.twitter.com/LSUHealthNO, or http://www.facebook.com/LSUHSC.

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