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To the Editor: Mr Linder and Dr Meyers¹ reviewed issues pertinent to palliative care in the prison population. They cited our study,² in which we reported a 10-fold increase in cancer diagnoses between 1980 and 1999 among inmates that accompanied the large increase in the Texas prison population. We described the distinctive epidemiology and the significantly higher overall mortality among inmates with cancer compared with matched Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results cohorts (median survival, 21 months vs 54 months; ², P<.001).

In citing our article, the authors state that our data suggest that curative and life-prolonging therapies are limited for inmates. To our knowledge, over the period of our study the only potentially life-prolonging treatment that was difficult to access for prison inmates was bone marrow transplantation. We are aware of no comparative studies of access to life-prolonging therapies between incarcerated persons in the United States and a population . . . [Full Text of this Article]

James Lin, MD
jlin712@earthlink.net

Paul Mathew, MD
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
Houston

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Prison Inmates and Palliative Care—Reply
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