"Health & Medical News"

A new study finds that white women more frequently take more of the life-prolonging supplemental therapies used to treat breast cancer than African-American women. African-American women may miss out on potentially lifesaving supplemental treatments for breast cancer that may prevent the cancer from returning. African-Americans whose cancer had spread to the lymph nodes were less likely to have adjuvant cancer therapy than white women, the study showed. Adjuvant therapy is treatment given to kill remaining cancer cells, in addition to the primary therapy. Studies suggest adjuvant therapy may increase the chances of long-term survival.

“We have seen that African-American women are not getting the optimal therapy as often as white Americans,” says researcher Mousumi Banerjee, PhD, of the University of Michigan, in a news release.“Some of it has to do with socioeconomics, some with insurance status and/or access to care, but there are choice issues as well, especially with chemotherapy.”
The study, which was led by Dr. Mousumi Banerjee of the University of Michigan School of Public Health, found that among women whose cancer had spread or become regional in nature, whites were almost five times more likely to take tamoxifen, a widely-used adjuvant cancer therapy medication, and more than three times more likely to have adjuvant chemotherapy. White and African American women with cancer that had not spread received tamoxifen and chemotherapy at equal rates.

Previous studies had shown differences between blacks and whites in rates of “breast-conserving” surgeries such as lumpectomy and adjuvant radiation ??” differences that were not seen in this study. There were also no significant differences seen in rates of Tamoxifen or chemotherapy use for local-stage disease.
“Usually surgery is part of the treatment,” said Dr. Beverly Moy, a medical oncologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital. “But for some cancers, it is completely equivalent to do mastectomy versus lumpectomy plus radiation. Given an option, most women would choose keeping their breast. So it was nice to see similar rates of mastectomy and breast-conserving therapy (between blacks and whites) in this study.”

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