Grade-stratified meningioma risk among individuals who are Non-Hispanic black and interactions with male sex.

Abstract

Background: Meningioma risk factors include older age, female sex, and African-American race. Limited data explore how meningioma risk in African-Americans varies across the lifespan, interacts with sex, and differs by tumor grade.

Methods: The Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States (CBTRUS) is a population-based registry covering the entire U.S. population. Meningioma diagnoses from 2004-2019 were used to calculate incidence rate ratios (IRRs) for non-Hispanic Black individuals (NHB) compared to non-Hispanic white individuals (NHW) across 10-year age intervals, and stratified by sex and by WHO tumor grade in this retrospective study.

Results: 53,890 NHB individuals and 322,373 NHW individuals with an intracranial meningioma diagnosis were included in analyses. Beginning in young adulthood, the NHB-to-NHW IRR was elevated for both grade 1 and grade 2/3 tumors. The IRR peaked in the seventh decade of life regardless of grade, and was higher for grade 2/3 tumors (IRR = 1.57; 95% CI: 1.46-1.69) than grade 1 tumors (IRR = 1.27; 95% CI: 1.25-1.30) in this age group. The NHB-to-NHW IRR was elevated in females (IRR = 1.17; 95% CI: 1.16-1.18) and was further elevated in males (IRR = 1.28; 95% CI: 1.26-1.30), revealing synergistic interaction between NHB race/ethnicity and male sex (PInteraction=0.001).

Conclusions: Relative to NHW individuals, NHB individuals are at elevated risk of meningioma from young adulthood through old age. NHB race/ethnicity conferred greater risk of meningioma among men than women, and greater risk of grade 2/3 tumors. Population-level differences in meningioma incidence and tumor behavior suggest potential disparities in the geographic, socioeconomic, and racial distribution of meningioma risk factors within the U.S.