Breast Cancer kills more Black Women than White

Deaths from breast cancer are declining by almost 2 per cent annually since 1990 but racial disparities remain in the figures, said the American Cancer Society. Black woman are unable to survive the disease unlike the whites.

American Cancer Society’s latest report, titled ‘Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2007-2008’ describes the death-decline as a ‘winning streak’ and credits it to advances in early detection and treatment.

"While many women live in fear of breast cancer, this report shows a woman today has a lower chance of dying from breast cancer than she's had in decades," said a statement by Dr. Harmon Eyre, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

During 2001 through 2004, breast cancer diagnoses fell by an average of 3.7 percent a year, mainly because of impeding the hormone replacement therapy. Also, it was found that many women failed to get mammograms and therefore were excluded from the diagnosis. During the same period, death rates recoded a drop of 2 per cent.

For women aged above 50 years breast cancer rates saw a greater fall, dropping 4.8 per cent each year since 2001. However, younger women and the blacks have not met with similar fate as the breast cancer rates in them remained stable.

The cancer death rate for white and Hispanic/Latina women was reported to have dropped by 2.4 per cent between 1995 and 2004, but it fell by only 1.6 per cent for African-American women, over the same period and did not change at all for Asian American/Pacific Islanders or American Indian/Alaskan Native women.

“Most troubling is the striking divergence in long-term mortality trends seen between African-American and white females that began in the early 1980s and that by 2004 had led to death rates being 36 per cent higher in African-American women,” said Eyre.

The American Cancer Society projected that 180,510 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed this year, and result in 40,910 deaths.