Posted on 09/06/2007 10:56:53 AM PDT by neverdem
Associated Press
A new study gives a possible explanation for why breast cancer is more deadly in black women: they are more likely to have tumors that do not respond to the hormone-based treatments that help many others with the disease.
The study is the largest yet to link a biological factor to the racial disparity, which also has been blamed on black women getting fewer mammograms and less aggressive treatment.
"This puts biology more to the forefront," said Dr. Julie Gralow, a cancer specialist at the University of Washington School of Medicine familiar with the work. "It's not just access to care, access to treatment and other factors that have been implicated in the past."
The study was led by Dr. M. Catherine Lee of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center and is to be presented at a conference starting Friday in San Francisco, organized by the American Society of Clinical Oncology and other cancer groups.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in American women. An estimated 178,480 new cases and 40,460 deaths from it are expected in the United States this year.
Blacks are less likely than whites to develop breast cancer but are more likely to die from it, doctors have long known. Blacks also are diagnosed at younger ages and at later stages of disease.
Researchers for the first time used the National Cancer Data Base, a tumor registry maintained by the American College of Surgeons, to explore these issues, using more than 170,000 cases diagnosed in 1998. Ten percent were in black women.
The study focused on the 95,500 women whose cancers were invasive rather than still confined to a milk duct. About 39 percent of such tumors in black women were estrogen receptor-negative, or ER-negative, compared with 22 percent of those...
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Interesting. And how about the role of diet and general nutrition? I wonder whether a family history of poor diet does something to the genes. Or even a good diet lacking in certain nutrients or over-concentrated on good nutrients that, in high concentrations, have negative effects. This chemistry set we walk around in is fascinating.
Oh, c’mon, it’s clearly BUSH’s FAULT because he hates black people, esp. women! /sarc (clearly)
I would think diet is a very large factor. That may make it harder to detect tumors early, resulting in cancers progressing to fatal stages.
shhhhhh, it's a secret plot by the democrats. Especially the southern democrats if ya know what I mean?
So that's it... abortions aren't bad for you (for the baby, that's another question) and will not affect breast cancer rates.
whew! I'm glad that it's settled, huh?
Easy to answer. Cancer is racist.
NY State didn't stay quiet, even if they don't shout it from the rooftops.
CORAM, MT. SINAI, PORT JEFFERSON STATION (CMP) FOLLOW-UP INVESTIGATION pdf link
BREAST CANCER RISK FACTORS with references starts on page 25. “The importance of reproductive factors in affecting breast cancer risk has been known for a long time. Women who have never given birth (or had a full-term pregnancy) are at a higher risk for breast cancer compared to women who have carried a pregnancy to term.”(Page 26)
Although that hypothesis is supported by the estrogen receptor positive cancers, not the estrogen receptor negative cancers, IMHO. However, I believe progesterone receptors could also be involved, but I'm not an oncologist.
Obviously because white male lacross players caused it to be that way by being white and male and coming from a culture that actually values work.
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It's not just access to caregosh, y'think? ;')
This is news, not chat.
The time line for research into tamoxifen and the estrogen agonists paralleled the availability of mammograms. So much for the discrimination angle.
The significant - and telling - part of this story,besides that ratio of ER+/ER- tumors is that black women are diagnosed earlier (before screening mammograms are routine) and with more aggressive tumors (which definitely does not point to disparities in access or the care and concern of their doctors).
Although I wonder how much help it will actually be for black women. Perhaps we need more and earlier screening for those at risk and more aggressive, surgical and radiation therapy for those women if our usual chemo of estrogen agonists won’t work.
And to discourage that first abortion in these women? The protective effect of an early first full term pregnancy is a health policy matter.
My sister was not black, but her breast cancer was deadly. If you have a loved one die from the disease, it doesn’t make sense to hear that it is more deadly for “other” people. Dead is dead.
I agree. I lost two aunts to the illness.
But sometimes color differences are a reality, and I don’t think it trivializes the impact of cancer to point them out.
And, for the record, my husband died of cancer. Granted. It wasn’t breast cancer. (Actually, it was from complications resulting from chemo.) But, as you point out: dead is dead. (And he wasn’t black.)
Beats me why the study was done — seems like a better use for the money would be in finding better treatments.
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