THURSDAY, Oct. 11 (HealthDay News) -- A study comparing breast cancer treatments among white and black patients at an urban cancer center reports that the two groups received similar therapies for local-stage breast cancer, but not regional-stage disease. The report is published online Oct. 8 in the journal Cancer.
Mousumi Banerjee, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues reviewed medical records for 242 white women and 388 black women who had been diagnosed with local- or regional-stage disease at a Detroit facility.
The researchers found no significant difference between the groups in the use of breast-conserving surgery versus mastectomy, and the groups were equally likely to receive adjuvant tamoxifen and chemotherapy for local-stage disease. However, for regional-stage disease, white women more often received tamoxifen and chemotherapy.
"The results from this study may be used to target educational interventions to improve the use of adjuvant therapies among African American women who have regional-stage disease," the authors conclude.
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