A new study indicates that African-American women who contract breast cancer prior to reaching menopause are more than twice as likely of having a particularly aggressive deadly form of the disease than women of other races. The results of the study were published in the 'Journal of the American Medical Association.'
The study explains why young black women are twice as likely to die of breast cancer than their white counterparts even though them are much less likely to get breast cancer than whites.
Dr. Lisa Carey of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the lead author of the study was still not sure why this particularly deadly form of breast cancer was more likely to be found in African-Americans.
'We actually don't know why younger African-American women are more prone to this kind of aggressive form of breast cancer. That actually is a challenge for us,' Dr. Carey explained.
The researchers examined 500 cases of breast cancer. Black women were found to have the basal-like form of the disease while only 16 percent of the white women of any age and 14 percent of post-menopausal black women.
The death-rate of blacks from breast cancer was higher than that of whites. Black women had a death-rate of 36.4 per 100,000 women, compared to 28.3 deaths per 100,000 white women.
Basal-like tumors are particularly aggressive and difficult to treat. The survival rate among patients is low and the reoccurrence rate of the cancer is very high.
Past studies indicate that socio-economic status is an important factor in early detection and early detection is a key to successful treatment. Additional research is needed to determine why African-American women are susceptible to this type of cancer.
