Black women have highest risk of advanced cervical cancer

The largest rate of increase in distant-stage (advanced) cervical cancer is occurring among White women and younger women, but Black women overall appear to have the highest rate of the disease, according to a study of more than 29,000 diagnosed from 2001 to 2018.

The study findings provide an update on trends of distant-stage cervical cancer in the United States and identify a continued problem with increasing rates of distant-stage cervical cancer, a diagnosis with a poor 5-year survival rate and typically no cure, said researcher Alex Andrea Francoeur, MD, of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Although the highest increase in distant-stage disease occurred in the South among white women aged between 40 and 44 years, researchers found that Black women aged between 55 and 59 years residing in the South were at highest risk, nearly twice that of their White counterparts.

• See “Surprising rise in distant-stage cervical cancer rates driven by white and younger women” by Jennifer Southall on the Nealio website (August 19, 2022)
• See the abstract of the scientific paper “The increasing incidence of stage IV cervical cancer in the USA: what factors are related?” by Alex Andrea Francoeur et al.