Originally published October 12 2005
Study examines the effects of breast cancer on black women
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The Journal of the American Medical Association published a report by Brock University researchers that explains how the increased fatality rate of black women with breast cancer relates to other chronic diseases, as 23 percent of black breast cancer patients had four or more diseases, while 18 percent of white patients did.
Researchers have long known that black women are more likely to die from breast cancer than white women even with comparable care, but they didn't know exactly why.
Illnesses other than breast cancer - including diabetes, heart disease, lupus and AIDS - are more likely to kill black patients before the cancer does, according to a new study in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Study author Martin Tammemagi, an associate professor of epidemiology at Brock University in Canada, wrote that chronic diseases are an important reason why there is a survival disparity between black women and white women.
"That's unacceptable," said Dr. John Kessler, a physician with Virginia Oncology Associates who practices in Hampton and Newport News.
Kessler said drugs used to treat other illnesses could also interfere with surgery and chemotherapy, possibly making them less effective or creating more complications.
Linda Parham of Newport News has shiny, dark hair on her head three years after losing it all to three months of chemotherapy to treat the cancer she discovered in her breast.
"My strength and my faith in God brought me through," she said.
Looking up at the construction paper lady bug and gingerbread man her son made, she said she wasn't worried.
In Virginia, about 37 percent of black women who develop breast cancer die compared to 26 percent of white women, according to the American Cancer Society.
Guy Tillinghaste, director of clinical trials at Riverside Regional Medical Center, says it's likely genetic.
"Black women seem to develop a different type of breast cancer that tends to be resistant to traditional therapy," he said.
Those treatments might actually cause more problems.
First diagnosed in 1997, Rose lost her left breast and had tumors removed from her chest wall.
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