Black patients with earlier-stage melanoma were more likely than their non-Hispanic white counterparts to experience delayed time from diagnosis to definitive surgery, according to a study.

โ€œPrevious research with Dr. Jeremy Bordeauxโ€™s research group has shown that black patients with melanoma have worse prognosis and that longer time from diagnosis to definitive surgical treatment is associated with worse survival,โ€ Raghav Tripathi, MPH, of the departments of dermatology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, told Healio. โ€œPrior to this study, the specific relationship between race and time to treatment was unknown.โ€