Breast Cancer Is Becoming A Death Sentence For Black Women!

Black women who develop breast cancer are LESS likely than any other race to be alive 5 years after their diagnosis, regardless of when their cancer was discovered or what type it is. Black women still have a 4% lower incidence rate of breast cancer than White women but a 40% higher breast cancer death rate. The differences in death rates are not explained by Black women having more aggressive cancers.

In addition, although clinical trials test the treatments that everyone takes, they don’t test those treatments on everyone equally. Despite making up 14% of the population of the United States, less than 3% of all clinical trial participants are Black. As is, breast cancer treatments don’t take into consideration the unique biology of Black women. A treatment that works for an older, earlier-stage white patient may not work the same for a young Black woman.

We just don’t have the science to know if approved treatments work on Black women effectively. And since Black women with breast cancer have a 71% higher relative risk of death than white women and a 39% higher recurrence rate, we know that current treatments aren’t working as well as they potentially could. It’s clearly time for the healthcare system to take a hard look at how they systematically are caring differently for Black women.