Survival of cancer patients by economic status in a free care setting.

Patients with lung, breast, and colorectal cancer were classified as to their economic status for comparison of survival. Patients at the City of Hope Medical Center are admitted and treated without regard to their economic status, providing an excellent place to test the effect of low economic status on survival. In none of these disease sites was an effect of low economic status observed, even when adjusting for age, sex, stage, smoking status, and alcohol usage. The only variable that consistently predicted survival was stage of disease; when accounting for stage, there was no independent effect of low economic status. In the presence of uniform care, low economic status as defined in this study is not a factor in patient survival.