The black-white disparity in breast cancer death rates has increased over time; by 2012, death rates were 42% higher in black women than white women. Well, not exactly. Women age 40 to 44 should still “have the opportunity” to have regular breast cancer screenings, according to the American Cancer Society. If breast cancer is diagnosed early and treated before it spreads, the five-year survival rate is 99 percent. One reason for this is that the diagnoses have become more available to black women now while the white rate has leveled off. There are factors that place women in the higher risk category for developing breast cancer, including having a close relative diagnosed with the disease and having the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene. Statistics show that Black women are diagnosed with breast cancer at much younger ages than white women and also dire from the disease at younger ages, with the median age for diagnosis being 58 for Black women and 62 for white women.
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Dr Daniel Rea, chairman of the NCRI breast cancer clinical studies group, said: “This study highlights that women aren’t always aware that lifestyle changes can have an impact on breast cancer risk”.
“For a while we’ve seen the increase in black women and stable rates in white women”, DeSantis, an epidemiologist, told NPR.
“I try to encourage women to stay up-to-date on prevention screening exams, like mammograms”, says Dr. Erika Crutcher, a family practice physician at the FCH Rural Health Clinic.
One potential cause for the trend could be obesity.
More than 3.1 million U.S. women with a history of breast cancer were alive on January 1, 2014 (the most recent data available).
For decades, African-American women have been less likely to get breast cancer than white women, but that health advantage has now all but disappeared.
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In announcing the new guidelines, the cancer society made it clear that if a woman wants to get a mammogram at age 40, she should do so. The obesity rate in black women was 58 percent during the 2009 to 2012 period, up from 39 percent from 1999 to 2002. But, anecdotally, I can’t imagine what would have happened to the cancer in her body had my mom had waited another year to get a screening.
