African-American women are diagnosed with more advanced breast cancer than Caucasians, according to a new, single hospital study.
Published in the August 15, 2007 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study analyzed demographic and breast cancer data from a single institution's registry, and confirmed that African-Americans are more likely to present with later stage and higher grade tumors compared to Caucasians. In addition, tumors from African-Americans contain more poor prognostic molecular characteristics than Caucasians. This preliminary study, according to the authors, "also illustrates that data available in our registry reflects national trends in demographics, and that further studies from our registry may be utilized as consistent parallel indicators."