By Staff
Friday, October 7, 2022 2:04 PM
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and new data from the American Cancer Society shows that the rate of cancer among women continues to drop, however, there continues to be a rise in cancer among women of color.
The study published in the
CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians found that breast cancer rates dropped by 43 percent from 1989 to 2020. Despite this, the number of cases among Black women continue to raise concern, with BIPOC being 40 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than non-blacks.
After lung cancer, breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among women. For women of color, it is the leading cause of death by cancer. Approximately 287,850 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 43,250 will die.
Though black women have the lowest rate of breast cancer incidences at 127.8 vs 133.7 per 100,000, they have a 40 percent higher mortality rate at 27.6 vs 19.7 per 100,000. For women over 50 this number increases significantly, reaching 12.1 vs. 6.5 per 100,000, a trend that has not changed since 2011.
The report also found that the number of breast cancer cases has risen by 0.5 percent a year since 2004, with most presenting as localized-stage and hormone-receptor-positive disease.
The total death rate dropped 43 percent between 1989 and 2020 due to early detection through screening and early detection. This pace has slowed, however, from 1.9 percent to 1.3 percent annual due to a higher incident rate.
The study showed that Black women have the lowest 5-year survival rate of all ethnic and racial groups and that American Indian and Alaska Native women were the least likely to be diagnosed at a rate of just 17 percent, however, 4 percent were more likely to die of the disease compared to white women.