Angela Giaquinto, lead author and ACS associate scientist in cancer surveillance research, said that even with a steady decline in breast cancer mortality rates, “future progress may be thwarted by increasing incidence, especially among younger women, and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as delayed diagnosis due to interruptions in screening.”
Breast cancer trails skin cancer as the most common cancer among U.S. women, and according to Dr. William Dahut, ACS chief scientific officer, “alarming disparities” remain particularly among Asian American, Pacific Islander, Native American, and Black women. For Black women, the group maintains a 38% higher breast cancer mortality rate than white women.
“These gaps need to be rectified through systematic efforts to ensure access to high-quality screening and treatment for every woman,” Dahut said.
“The reasons for the increased prevalence of breast cancer in younger patients are complicated, multifaceted, and still being studied,” Dr. Christopher McGreevy, associate chief of breast surgery at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, told Fox News Digital. McGreevy noted contributing factors such as obesity, delayed childbearing, environmental toxins or genetics. Some researchers attribute the cause to systematic racism, delays in diagnosis, and inadequate access to timely cancer treatment.
The report from the ACS examined cancer data from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR), and the National Center for Health Statistics.
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Source: Black Enterprise
