CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Vol 31, 208-211, Copyright
© 1981 by American Cancer Society
Breast Cancer in Black Women
LaSalle D. Leffall Jr. M.D.1
1 Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery of Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, D.C.
We believe that poor results in black women may be attributed to later stage of disease at the time of diagnosis and fewer well-differentiated tumors. It is evident that larger tumors were more frequent in blacks than in whites, particularly so in the case of invasive carcinoma. Increased emphasis on monthly breast self-examination for black women is certainly warranted, as is more frequent use of low dose mammography, where appropriate, if one is to achieve earlier diagnosis and greater possibility of long-term survival.
A definitive cause of the increased mortality in blacks was not determined.
