The Pith: In this post I examine the relationship between racial ancestry and cancer mortality risks conditioned on particular courses of treatment. I review research which indicates that the amount of Native American ancestry can be a very important signal as to your response to treatment if you have leukemia, as measured by probability of relapse.
If you are an engaged patient who has been prescribed medication I assume you’ve done your due diligence and double-checked your doctor’s recommendations (no, unfortunately an M.D. does not mean that an individual is omniscient). Several times when I’ve been prescribed a medication I have seen a note about different recommended dosages by race when I did further research. Because of my own personal background I am curious when it says “Asian.” The problem with this term in medical literature is that “Asian” in the American context is derived from a Census category constructed in 1980 for bureaucratic and political purposes. It amalgamates populations which are genetically relatively close, East and Southeast Asians, with more distant ones, South Asians (when my siblings were born I remember that my parents listed their race as “Asian” …