Breast Cancer and African American Women

As we begin to close in on October - sorry, I don't mean to rush through the seasons - we'll be hearing stories about breast cancer treatment as October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. But already a story caught my eye and it's troubling.

Once again a study finds "After adjusting for tumor size and lymph node status as well age and other factors, the mortality rate for African-American women with breast cancer was as much as 56% higher than that for whites, Alfred I. Neugut, M.D., Ph.D., of Columbia University, and colleagues reported in the Sept. 15 issue of Cancer.

Not only do black women have higher breast cancer mortality rates they are more likely to be diagnosed at an advanced stage of the disease and have worse stage-for-stage survival than white women, the researchers said.

But once again, researchers are stumped .. "Whether these disparities are caused by a difference between races in tumor biology or to nonclinical socioeconomic factors that affect access to care has been unclear," Dr. Neugut said.

The take away .. we need to reduce barriers to screening and treatment - and we need to remind our sisters and the women we love - to be screened and to follow their doctor's advice when it comes to treatment.