Hispanics & Lung Cancer - ABC 33/40 - Birmingham News, Weather, Sports

New research suggests that Hispanics in the U.S. have better chance of surviving lung cancer than other groups of people.

The new study shows that Hispanic people with lung cancer tend to live longer than white or black Americans with the disease.

Doctors believe genetic factors or environmental advantages, such as lower rates of tobacco use are in part the reasons for their increased likelihood of survival.

The study pointed out that Hispanics tend to have better odds of survival despite facing more obstacles to health care and higher rates of poverty than other groups.

The researchers examined diagnosis and survival data on cancer patients from a national database that pooled information from U.S. cancer registries.

They identified 172,000 adults diagnosed with any stage of the most common form of lung cancer, known as non-small cell lung cancer, between 1988 and 2007.

The research is published online in the journal, Cancer.