Breast cancer rates rising among African-American women

Breast cancer rates are rising among African-American women, closing a longstanding gap with rates of the illness among white women, according to a report released Thursday.

Breast cancer rates in black women rose by about 0.4 percent each year between 2008 to 2012, but were stable among white, Latina and Native-American women during the same time period.

By 2012 breast cancer rates were higher among black women than white women in seven U.S. states — Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee — according to the annual report on breast cancer statistics by the American Cancer Society (ACS), published in “CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.”

The researchers said they don’t know why breast cancer rates have been on the rise among black women. They noted, however, that black women had increasing incidences of estrogen-receptor-positive cancer — meaning that the cancer cells grow in response to the hormone estrogen — a type of cancer that has been linked to obesity. They also said that although the breast cancer cases rose among Asian-American women — a 1.5 percent increase per year during the 2008 to 2012 period — they still have the lowest rates among any group.

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed type of cancer in U.S. women, and is the second leading cause of death among women behind lung cancer.

Death rates from breast cancer have dropped by 36 percent since 1989, according to ACS. But black women’s death rates from it have outpaced white women's, even though historically they have developed breast cancer less often. In 2012, African-American women’s death rates from breast cancer were 42 percent higher than for white women.

ACS believes the disparity in death rates could be due to black women being diagnosed at later stages of the disease, to differences in the type of tumor, or to a lack of access to regular cancer screenings.

“Poverty, lower levels of educational attainment, and a lack of health insurance are also associated with lower breast cancer survival largely because of limited access to care,” the report said.

ACS says breast cancer death rates have declined between 2003 and 2012 among all racial and ethnic groups except for Native American women — by 1.8 percent per year among white women, by 1.5 percent annually among Latinas, by 1.4 percent per year among African-American women and by 1 percent among Asian-American women.

Lower rates of breast cancer among Asian-American and Hispanic women are thought to be related to decreased risk factors, including lower rates of obesity and alcohol consumption.

“The World Cancer Research Fund International estimates that one third of breast cancers could be prevented through healthy behaviors, including maintaining a healthy body weight, engaging in regular physical activity, and not drinking alcohol,” the report said, adding that evidence is growing that eating lots of fruits and vegetables may reduce the likelihood of getting hormone receptor-negative breast cancer.