Black women should get mammograms, enroll in clinical trials, take other measures to prevent breast cancer

Sep 11 2006

Although the number of new breast cancer cases in the U.S. has "leveled off" according to a recent a report, black women must "participate in ... clinical trials, tend to their diets, exercise more, do monthly self-exams and get mammograms," Joyce King, a freelance writer, writes in a USA Today opinion piece.

"[T]roubling data" published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association "conclude that black women diagnosed with breast cancer are more likely to die than white women" because they are more likely to have "basal like" tumors, which are associated with higher mortality, according to King.

"Today, many therapies don't work well against basal-like breast cancer, and the most common approach is surgery or chemotherapy," King writes, adding, "But if research is focused especially on black women with this type of breast cancer, breakthrough treatments might be found" (King, USAToday, 9/8).