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.

“Previous research with Dr. Jeremy Bordeaux’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,” Raghav Tripathi, MPH, of the departments of dermatology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, told Healio. “Prior to this study, the specific relationship between race and time to treatment was unknown.”