Study Finds Why Breast Cancer Is More Deadly in Black Women

Study Finds Why Breast Cancer Is More Deadly in Black Women: 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 will be presented starting Sept. 7 in San Francisco at a conference, which was 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 are expected from it 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.