A large, new studyoffers more evidence that a woman's chances of surviving invasive breast cancer may depend on her race or ethnicity.
The latest study followed the outcomes of more than 373,000 women with invasive breast cancer and found that the 7-year risk of death for stage 1 breast cancer was highest for African American women.
Surgical oncologist Dr. Kristin Skinner of UR Medicine’s Comprehensive Breast Care at Pluta says this can be attributed to both differences in access to and type of care and biological disparities among women of different racial groups.
"I don't think that people in the breast cancer field are necessarily going to be surprised because we've known this for a while. It's just the biggest study using as much national data we can get showing that this really seems to be the case."
Skinner says the most important take home message for any woman is to get breast cancer screening annually after age 40 and earlier if you have a family history.
“That's especially important in the African American population, where these cancers tend to be aggressive, even when they're very small."
