A far-flung study by Atlanta -based American Cancer Society reveals that cancer patients with private insurance gets an edge over uninsured Americans.

The chances of early diagnosis are more with insured patients, hence, it is likely to result in long-term survival for them. On the other hand, delayed diagnoses with uninsured patients can result in the development of advanced forms of many common cancers.

Serious ill effects of this gap are decades of lost life for the patients and millions of dollars of added medical care for the health system.

Over 3.5 million American adults with 12 types of cancer were subjected to study by National Cancer Database. The study, first of its kind to use national data to investigate insurance status and stage of diagnosis for a large number of cancer sites, appeared in the March issue of The Lancet, Oncology  The results showed a greater correlation between the  insurance status and the stage of the malignancy  in the case of  colon, breast and prostate cancer.

The reason is simple and apparently obvious. The symptoms of these can be detected early through routine screenings. The uninsured patients are half as likely to get mammography, colonoscopy and the like which reduced the chances of early detection.

Insurance alone is not responsible for these disparities.  The study came out with so many other interesting findings too. The chances of detection as well as scope for therapies of some cancers were less in African-Americans when compared to white Americans. This not only accounts for their disproportionately high rates of being uninsured and underinsured, but also points out to lack of health awareness and insufficient supply of providers in minority communities.