2023 George Edgecomb Grant Recipients

The George Edgecomb Society has awarded four grants of $75,000 to Moffitt teams conducting cancer health disparities research. These lay abstracts explain the research.

Tumor Biology / Biostatistics and Bioinformatics: Defining the immune and signaling landscape of acral melanoma in African-American patients

Keiran Smalley, PhD; Ann Chen, PhD

Acral melanoma is a rare type of skin cancer that occurs on the non-hair bearing skin of the hands and soles of the feet. The development of acral melanoma is not linked to sun exposure and as such, represents the most common form of melanoma in African American patients. Acral melanoma tends to be diagnosed later in patients who are African American and outcomes are worse than acral melanoma in patients of Asian or European ancestry. Virtually nothing is known about the molecular characteristics or immune landscape of acral melanoma arising in African American patients, making it difficult to develop personalized therapies for these individuals. The goal of this proposal is to perform the first ever immune and cell signaling analysis of acral melanoma samples from African American patients. We will then compare these data to existing analyses of acral melanoma in white patients to identify unique therapeutic vulnerabilities that can be targeted in the African American cohort. We expect to identify novel strategies for therapy that can be developed into future clinical trials.  

Thoracic Oncology: Minority patient-centered education initiative to increase knowledge about clinical trials in thoracic oncology

Minority patients experience more diagnosis and care delays and have worse survival. Black and Hispanic/LatinX patients do not participate in clinical trials as often as white patients. Clinical trials are essential for the development and delivery of new treatments. However, several barriers prevent minority patients from participating in these, including not understanding a clinical trial, not having access to studies, and lack of trust in the medical community. Educating patients on clinical trials may help solve some of these problems. There is limited information on how an educational video impacts Black and Hispanic/LatinX patients’ knowledge and attitudes toward clinical trials. The few published studies demonstrated patients receive educational videos well. However, patients pointed out that the educational video studied were not culturally sensitive, and mixed results were seen in their impact on clinical trial participation. We need to increase minority patients’ participation in clinical trials so they have access to new and potentially better treatments. In this research, we will create and deliver two culturally sensitive patient-centered videos for Black and Hispanic/LatinX patients to increase education about clinical trials in thoracic oncology. If these videos do well, we may increase minority patient participation in clinical trials.

Health Outcomes and Behavior: Breast Cancer Survivors RESET (Reducing Weight and Elevated Stress Levels using Educational and Behavioral Tools): A pilot, feasibility study

Breast cancer became the most common cancer globally in 2020 and remains the second-most common cancer among women in the United States. Black women tend to develop more aggressive breast cancer subtypes, have a higher death rate from breast cancer, and have poorer survivorship-associated outcomes compared to white women. Thus, strategies to improve cancer survivorship for this at-risk group are needed. Obesity and chronic stress are two factors that influence the breast cancer survivorship experience. The prevalence of obesity and chronic stress are also higher among Black women compared to other groups. Thus, an intervention targeting weight and stress management may offer an innovative approach to improve outcomes for Black breast cancer survivors. We propose to systematically adapt RESET – a culturally-tailored, stress-management enhanced behavioral weight loss intervention – to be tailored for Black breast cancer survivors. The adapted intervention will be “Survivors RESET.” We will assess the feasibility and acceptability of “Survivors RESET” and measure changes in survivorship-associated factors (e.g., weight, allostatic load, patient reported outcomes). Findings from this project will provide critical information to inform future directions for larger trials to promote lifestyle modification to enhance cancer survivorship for Black women.  

Machine Learning / Health Outcomes and Behavior: Identifying tailored interventions to eliminate racial disparities of Florida eligible African Americans and white patients' participation in and adherence to lung cancer screening in a specific community

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the US, with outcomes particularly poor in African Americans and other racial/ethnic minorities. Although yearly CT screening has been shown to reduce mortality in lung cancer patients, screening initiation and (particularly) screening adherence rates are unacceptably low; and again, worse in African Americans. Therefore, research to identify and develop evidence-based interventions to improve screening adherence in screening eligible African Americans is critical. In this study, we will use artificial intelligence / machine learning and geospatial analyses to explore rates of eligible patients’ participation in and adherence to lung cancer screening and identify community-level interventions which improve screening and adherence in African American populations. We will develop a data-driven intervention decision support system, with the goal of removing the racial disparities of lung cancer screening and incidence between eligible African American and white patients.