HEALTHM TTERS
HEALTHM TTERS
LET’S TALK About Breasts By Dionne Grant
T
HE BLACK community has been reared on a culture of privacy and keeping issues – including health worries – close to our chests. For many years, the issue of cancer, be it breast or prostate, which affects one in four black men, has been taboo. But rigorous publicity awareness campaigns and fundraising drives have brought it to the fore and encouraged more and more people affected by these diseases to shun anonymity and come forward to share their stories in hope of helping others. UNCLEAR Research shows that one in eight women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime [source: Breast Cancer Care]. However, black women diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK have poorer relative survival rates than their white counterparts. “The reasons for this are unclear, but may be due to delays in diagnosis through late presentation with symptoms
or lower uptake of screening opportunities,” leading charity Breast Cancer Care noted. “The All Breast Cancer Report 2009 also showed that patients known to be black were diagnosed with breast cancers
tingham Prognosis Index (NPI) scores.” GREATER RISK In 2013, The Telegraph ran a story titled “Black women at greater breast cancer risk.”
In the research, conducted by the University of Southampton and involving 2,915 women who were aged 40 or younger when diagnosed with breast cancer, found that in general, young black women
Research shows that black women diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK have poorer relative survival rates than their white counterparts with a worse prognosis than those in other ethnic groups; their breast tumours were significantly larger, of higher grade, more likely to be node positive and had worse Not-
The warning followed a UK study that found young black women (under 41 years of age) had worse breast cancer outcomes compared with young white women.
had poorer relapse-free survival compared with young white women. Even after the researchers adjusted their findings for factors such as body mass index,
tumour size and whether the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes, black ethnicity was still associated with poorer relapsefree survival compared with white ethnicity. In other words, breast cancer was more likely to reoccur in black women. There were no significant differences in overall survival or breast cancer reoccurrence between white and Asian women. The researchers speculated that there could be both genetic and social factors involved, citing, for example, that immigrant women may be less likely to register with a GP. BARRIERS “Language barriers could prevent recent immigrants from accessing health care, [the researchers] suggested, while some research suggests black women are less likely to selfcheck for lumps than other ethnic groups,” The Telegraph reported. Conducted in 2013, the study also confirmed previous research that showed that black women tend to have more aggressive tumours. In addition to the University of Southampton, the study was carried out by researchers from University Hospital Southamp-
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PHOTO CREDIT: Estée Lauder (breast cancer awareness campaign)
MARCH 26 - APRIL 1, 2015
ton Foundation Trust, the Centre for Statistics in Medicine, and Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. AWARENESS Dr Julie Sharp, head of health information at Cancer Research UK, which funded the study, said: “It’s worrying that ethnic background may be a factor influencing a woman’s chance of surviving breast cancer. “We know that some ethnic populations carry higher genetic risks of getting certain types of breast cancer, but if this difference is down to symptom awareness or access to health care, that is particularly concerning.” Dr Ellen Copson, one of the authors of the study, said further research is needed to “pin down the exact cause or causes, so we can tackle this issue”. Ethnicity aside, female breast cancer incidence rates in Great Britain have increased by 72 per cent since the mid1970s. In the UK in 2011, around 49,900 women were diagnosed with breast cancer, which totals more than 130 women CONTINUED ON PAGE 28