According to a Yale Cancer Center study recently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, black women have worse outcomes than other minority women treated with chemotherapy before surgery. Minority women are given early chemotherapy more frequently, because they usually develop advanced-stage breast cancer more often than white women.
Researchers reviewed 27,300 cases of women with stage I-III cancer from the National Cancer Database, looking at racial disparities in the use of and response to early chemotherapy.
An author of the study said these results were found, even after scientists controlled for the fact that minority women often develop more advanced-stage, higher-grade tumors and more aggressive types of breast cancer overall.
Researchers are not sure why this is, but believe biologic differences in chemosensitivity, disparities in treatment, or socioeconomic factors could play a role.
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