Study shows poorer prognosis for black women across breast cancer subtypes
When compared with other racial and ethnic groups across cancer subtypes, black women with breast cancer have significantly poorer survival, according to a recent study. Although black women are more often diagnosed with less treatable types of breast cancer, study results suggest that the disparities in survival are not exclusively due to this fact.
For the study, Candyce Kroenke, MPH, ScD, research scientist at Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, CA, and colleagues investigated the correlation between race and breast cancer survival among 1688 breast cancer survivors enrolled in the Life After Cancer Epidemiology and Pathways study.
After 6.3 years of follow-up, researchers found that, consistent with previous data, black women were nearly twice as likely to have died of breast cancer compared with white women. Furthermore, compared with white women, black women were less apt to receive a luminal A or luminal B breast cancer diagnosis.
However, across breast cancer subtypes, black women consistently experienced a poor prognosis, according to study results. Compared with white women, black women were 2.4 times more likely to die of the HER2-enriched breast cancer subtype, 1.3 times more likely to die of the basal-like subtype, 2.3 times more likely to die of the luminal A cancer subtype, and 2.6 times more likely to die of the luminal B subtype.
The study was presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013.
Source: AACR.