Christopher Flowers, M.D., MS

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is the most common blood cancer. Most patients with DLBCL are cured with treatment. People are more likely to die if they do not get standard treatment or if they have a worse type of DLBCL. DLBCL can be divided into two major types: GCB disease and ABC disease. 90% of GCB patients and 44% of ABC patients are alive 3 years after standard treatment. We think that the same number of ABC and GCB DLBCLs occur. We do not know if there are racial differences. We saw that African-American patients get DLBCL at a younger age than white patients and more often die. We also saw that in the past black patients did not get standard treatment as often. We want to understand why African-Americans have worse survival. We will examine differences in the numbers of ABC DLBCLs in the population of the state of Georgia. We will collect DNA to examine the genes linked to ABC DLBCL. This will be the first statewide study to collect data on the genetics of DLBCL, the treatment that patients received, and their survival. From this, we plan to identify which factors are most important to target to eliminate racial disparities in cancer survival.