Breast Cancer Diagnosis Rate Levels Up Between Black and White Women

A time has come where breast cancer affects all racial women equally. More than few decades, black women diagnosed with breast cancer was lesser when compared to white, but the deaths were more among black women, revealed a new study.A //study conducted by the American Cancer Society was led by Carol DeSantis and it was published online in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The study found that unfortunately breast cancer diagnosis rates have increased now among the black women, whereas it has leveled off among the white. The death gap has actually widened.

Researchers analyzed the breast cancer diagnosis and death rates among both races of women in 9 parts across the country. Data revealed that in 2012, around 135 cases per 100,000 women in both races was reported. But after this, the rates of diagnosis steeped among the black women and the researchers don't exactly know why.

Health Experts claim that obesity might be one of the reasons for the increase in cancer diagnosis among the black women. They also mentioned that childbirth is associated with a lower risk of developing breast cancer later on. In this case, white women waited for longer time to have children than the black women.

Also, black women in the southern parts of the country suffered with additional health problems at the time they were diagnosed. As far as breast cancer death rates are concerned, it is falling in both the races due to early diagnosis and better treatment.

Over a decade, the white breast cancer death rate fell from about 25 to 21 per 100,000. The black death rate dropped from about 34 to 29 per 100,000.

But higher rates of black women are being diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer and with a particularly aggressive form of the disease known as triple negative breast cancer.

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"This is just such a complex disease. We used to think of breast cancer as, you were before or after menopause. It really is more about the biology of the cancer," said Dr. Joanne Mortimer, an oncologist at City of Hope in Duarte, California.

Source-Medindia