Researchers at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto (Canada) studied medical data from 375,000 women who had invasive cancer diagnosed between 2004 and 2011.
The results of their research show that black women are less likely to have breast cancer stage 1 than the Japanese. And that even though breast cancer was diagnosed at stage 1 in black women, they are at higher risk of dying than white or Japanese women.
In this study, Dr. Steven Narod recalls “that we already knew that there were differences in the chances of survival between black and white women. But it was long believed to be linked to access to quality health care in the United States. Before the Affordable Care Act came into effect, more black women may have been without health care insurance ”.
But he says that after analyzing medical data and levels of access to care, black women would be more at risk of dying from an illness. breast cancer than the white and the Japanese.
“There might be intrinsic biological differences that are responsible for some of the differences in results, which cannot be ruled out.”
However, these findings are not endorsed by Dr. Otis Brawley, the chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. He asserts that “the differences in the chances of survival are not linked to race, but to socio-economic factors. Girls who are born into poor families have poor diets, are more likely to gain weight with children and to have periods young, which is linked to an increased risk of breast cancer ”.
According to the Institute for Public Health Surveillance (INVS), the breast cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death in women. It is responsible for nearly 11,000 annual deaths in France and 410,000 worldwide.
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