Black women diagnosed with early breast cancer were about twice as like as white women to have obesity or high blood pressure and about four times as likely to have diabetes, according to a chart review of 548 women at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Despite the differences in obesity and underlying medical conditions, there was no difference in the decisions to treat the women with surgery type, chemotherapy regiment, radiation, or hormone regimens.
The disparities in medical conditions could complicate the survival of the women and contribute to the higher mortality rate from breast cancer in Black women, the researchers suggest.
- See “Breast Cancer Survival Disparities: Need to Address Obesity” by Sharon Worcester on the Medscape website (December 10, 2020)
- See the full text of the scientific paper “Obesity, comorbidities, and treatment selection in Black and White women with early breast cancer” by Kirsten A Nyrop et al.
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