UT Health San Antonio experts discuss cancer crisis in Latinos at KSAT town hall

A panel of UT Health San Antonio experts participated in a town hall hosted by KSAT anchor Stephania Jimenez on Oct. 8 to discuss cancer rates among the Hispanic community and how the UT Health San Antonio Multispecialty and Research Hospital, in collaboration with the Mays Cancer Center at UT Health San Antonio, will help patients in the region.

The new hospital, which opens its doors in December 2024, aims to help cancer patients in South Texas, where, according to researchers, Latinos experience higher cancer rates for cervical, stomach and liver cancers compared to the rest of the state. Still, there are very few studies as to why the rate of cancer is growing in this population.

The panel consisted of Mark Bonnen, MD, chief medical officer at Mays Cancer Center; Jeff Flowers, MBA, chief executive officer at the UT Health San Antonio Multispecialty and Research Hospital; and Amelie Ramirez, DrPH, MPH, associate director of Community Outreach and Engagement at Mays Cancer Center.

"Our community still fears cancer, and that leads to delays in coming in for screenings that they may need," Ramirez explained. "There are many social determinants of health that affect this population's outcomes, things like not having a physician or insurance, not being able to pay a copay or not being able to take off time from work to come in for appointments; all of these things contribute to the delay of diagnosis. We see that many Latinos are not surviving cancer because they are not coming in early enough. They are often diagnosed at stage 4 when the cancer is so far advanced that treatments are less effective."

Bonnen reiterated these challenges as a driving cause of the cancer crisis in Latinos, but also highlighted a deeper running problem.

"We don't even understand why some of these cancers are more prevalent in the Hispanic community because the research just hasn't been done," Bonnen said. "If you look worldwide at approaches to treating cancer, the populations included in those studies are predominately not Latino. And that's why the work that Dr. Ramirez does and what we do at Mays Cancer Center is so important because we're focusing on that community and trying to figure out the very best way to care for that community."

This collaborative focus on both research and culturally specific care will be further strengthened by the opening of the UT Health San Antonio Multispecialty and Research Hospital.

"The hospital will give us the opportunity to collaborate with the Mays Cancer Center, with all the clinical trials and work being done there on the outpatient side and bring everything together under one umbrella in an inpatient setting to care for our patients and our community across the entire spectrum," Flowers said.

"From the family and patient perspective, that means they get to stay home. They will have the option and opportunity to stay right here in town and get that comprehensive care. Having to travel around for treatment and make all those plans for work or child care is a heavy burden for patients and their families. But the new hospital will put all of the specialists and treatments in one place, so it's less of a strain for patients to get the care they need."

The town hall, "Revolutionizing Cancer Care for South Texas: A New Era of Treatment," streamed live on KSAT.com and is available to watch on YouTube.

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