Race did not significantly predict response to treatment outcomes among women with high-risk breast cancer in a new study of nearly 1,000 women. Beverly Kyalwazi, MD, and her colleagues found that tumor biology more strongly predicted a positive outcome from treatment. Black women who received appropriate therapies based on their tumor profiles saw the same benefits of treatment as white women.
If a complete response to treatment is achieved, the outcome will be excellent and there is no difference among women of different races,” said researcher Laura J. Esserman, MD, noted. “However, if there is not a complete response, then outcomes are worse for Black women with hormone receptor-positive HER2-negative breast cancer.
The results of the study were presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in December 2021.
- See “Tumor biology predicts breast cancer treatment outcomes more than race” by Jennifer Southall on the Healio website (December 10, 2021)
- See the abstract of the study at the end of this article “Black and white women who received neoadjuvant therapy were equally likely to have pathologic complete response” on the EurekAlert! website.
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