Demographic differences in the treatment of gastric cancer.

e16078 Background: Globally, as of 2020, gastric cancer is the 5th most common cancer and the 4th common cause of cancer-related death. Our objective is to determine how gender/sex, race, treatment location, and socioeconomic factors contribute to the treatment of patients (pts) with gastric cancer. Methods: 233,479 pts were identified from the National Cancer Database (NCDB) between 2004 and 2018. Pts were divided into 3 age-based subgroups. The <=45 y/o (N=14,481) group was designated early-onset gastric cancer (EOGC). The 46 - 70 y/o (N=118,756) group was termed average-onset gastric cancer (AOGC). The >70 y/o (N=100,242) group was termed late-onset gastric cancer (LOGC). Overall 114,117 (48.9%) received surgery; 112,953 (48.4%) received chemotherapy; and 55,024 (23.6%) received radiation therapy. Unfortunately, data were not available on the receipt of bimodal or trimodal therapy. We used chi-square tests and a logistic regression model to examine factors associated with treatment patterns. Factors considered in the model included: age, gender/sex, race/ethnicity, cancer stage, facility type, year of diagnosis, insurance status, and location of residence. Results: Females represented a higher proportion of EOGC pts (47%) compared to AOGC pts (34.5%) and LOGC pts (41%). A greater amount of EOGC pts were Hispanic (24.9%) compared to AOGC pts (10.4%) and LOGC pts (7.1%). EOGC pts were often treated at academic centers (65.8%) compared to AOGC pts (60.9%) and LOGC pts (54.4%). A larger percentage of EOGC pts were uninsured (11.7%) vs AOGC pts (5.4%) and LOGC pts (0.9%). The table outlines differences in treatment by age, sex, race/ethnicity, facility type, year of diagnosis, insurance, and location of residence (after adjusting for stage). Conclusions: EOGC pts display unique demographic characteristics. After adjusting for stage, significant differences exist in how pts with gastric cancer are treated. Further work is needed to delineate the impact of gastric cancer in young pts and determine which factors play a role in treatment for pts of all ages from both the patient and oncologist perspective.[Table: see text]