A new study provides evidence that racial differences in the clinical presentation of breast cancer may be due more to biological factors rather than differences in access to healthcare alone.
Published in the May 15, 2007 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, an analysis of breast cancer cases diagnosed in a managed health care system found that in patients with equal access to healthcare, Hispanic women were at significantly higher risk for being diagnosed with more advanced and more aggressive tumors and at a younger age than non-Hispanic women.
Previous studies have shown that the incidence of breast cancer, the most common cancer in women, varies according to race and ethnicity. For example, breast cancer is more common among Caucasian women compared to other races. However, Hispanic women present with more advanced disease and with cancers that have a worse outcome compared to other races. A growing body of evidence suggests that biological or genetic factors may explain these racial differences. Few studies, however, have fully controlled for healthcare access between Hispanic and non-Hispanic women with breast cancer.