According to a new report from the American Cancer Society, poor women are more likely to die of breast cancer than are middle-class or rich women. The findings have been published in Breast Cancer Statistics, 2011, which appears in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
Though no studies have been done to prove it as yet, most industry experts believe the reason that poor women account for a higher death rate from breast cancer than other women is likely due to poor women not having access to routine breast screenings and mammograms. This generally means that breast cancer is detected later in poor women than for other women in the general population, making it more difficult to treat. For example, as noted in the report, in 2008, 51.4% of poor women ages 40 and older had a screening mammogram in the prior two years compared to 72.8% of non-poor women.
An article in Medical News Today (no author noted) includes the annual report prepared this year by doctors Rebecca Siegel, Elizabeth Ward, Otis Brawley and Ahmedin Jemal which highlights the current state of all types of cancer diagnosis and treatment in the United States for the prior year, and in many cases shows trends over many years to highlight how current treatments are faring.
Other highlights from the report show that breast cancer death rates over all have declined by 3.2% per year since 1990 for women younger than 50, and by 2% for those older than 50.
Also noted is that breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer to strike women (skin cancer is first) in the United States, making up approximately a third of all cancers diagnosed and only lung cancer kills more women each year.
Breast cancer rates are highest for non-Hispanic white women, and lowest for Asian American women. And though breast cancer rates are lower for African-American women than white women, a higher percentage of them die from it, likely the authors note, due to the fact that a higher percentage of African-American women are poor.
The authors conclude their report by noting that steady progress is being made in reducing the number of deaths each year attributable to breast cancer, though they note a lot of work is still left to do. At the time of the report they note that some two and a half million women in this country are living with a history of breast cancer and 39,520 women are expected to die from it this year alone.