Poverty, fear play roles in skipping lifesaving therapies, researchers say……

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This is one in a series of post on breast cancer.  The challenge to all my sisters is to commit to self-examination and introspection, to take concrete steps to maintain breast health.

Do you know of someone who has cancer?  How are they dealing with it?  What are you doing to protect yourself?  What are you doing in your communities to help?

There are no pink ribbons on display; there are no pleas for donations to cancer foundations.

After decades of  folks pouring money into various cancer foundations for cancer research, I’d like to know where is the cure?  Wouldn’t you?

**Now take a look at the findings of a study done on black women and their refusal of breast cancer treatment:

MANY BLACK WOMEN REFUSE BREAST CANCER TREATMENT

Almost 25 percent of black women with advanced breast cancer refuse the chemotherapy and radiation treatments that could save their lives, a new study finds. (That’s  ONE IN FOUR women!)  Are you shocked and angered by the statistic yet?  I am.

Black women have almost twice the rate of advanced breast cancer as white women do, largely because the disease is often diagnosed after it has already progressed. In addition, some black women have misconceptions about cancer and are reluctant to seek medical help, the researchers said.

Educating women is also important, Rizzo said. “Educate more women and dispel some fears that they can have about cancer and cancer treatment, and encourage them to have yearly mammograms to catch cancers at an earlier stage, when the cancer is more curable,” she said.

“We found in this study on locally advanced breast cancer, mainly done in black women, that almost a quarter of the patients [refused] chemotherapy and radiation therapy that are the standard of care for stage 3 breast cancer,” said lead researcher Dr. Monica Rizzo, an assistant professor of surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.

Why these women balk at treatment is unclear, Rizzo said. “We looked at martial status, as well as religious background, of those women and, unfortunately, we were not able to find any clear identifier,” she said.

Things that may be associated with their refusal of treatment are fear of the medical system and poverty, which makes it difficult to get to the hospital and get time off work for treatment, Rizzo said. In addition, cultural differences may also play a role, she said.

Rizzo noted many more blacks refuse breast cancer treatment than women from other populations.

The report is published in the May 22 online edition of Cancer.

For the study, Rizzo’s team looked at the records of 107 women with advanced breast cancer reported in one inner city hospital from 2000 to 2006. About 87 percent of these women were black. Among these women, 29 percent had tumors that do not respond well to new targeted treatments.

Although the recommend treatments for advanced breast cancer are chemotherapy and radiation, many women chose not to be treated. In fact, 20.5 percent refused chemotherapy, and 26.3 percent refused radiation, the researchers reported.

To try to get more of these women to accept treatment, Rizzo’s group has started a community outreach program that uses a nurse practitioner and a social worker to follow breast cancer patients and their care.

The researchers speculated that factors such as cultural beliefs, access to health care, other illnesses and patient choice may all play a role.

We can not afford to allow fear and ignorance to become the grim reaper.  What are we doing to ensure that we and our sisters can afford to receive the care and treatments they might need?

My twin sister died of this advanced form of breast cancer at age 33.  She had a radical mastectomy performed one week after her fifth child was born.  (Left breast and lymph nodes removed.)

She did 3 months of chemo, and decided to stop.  She wanted to bond with her baby and the chemo made her too  weak and ill to do so.  That was twenty one years ago.  I felt helpless because she made the decision, and there was no way to convince her to continue.  It was painful to watch her die a painful death.  She left behind 5 children.

My twin sister’s death became my impetus to take better care of myself, to become knowledgeable about not only the disease, but how to prevent it from inviting itself into my body.  I vowed to take better care of myself.  It has not been without its challenges.  The fear Dr. Rizzo speaks of is very real.

Read more here.

Who are the faces of  breast cancer?  All  races of women.  Who are the faces of breast cancer with the highest mortality rate?  BLACK WOMEN.

What steps will you take today, to ensure that you do not become or remain a statistic?  Breast cancer is no longer considered an automatic death sentence.

Next series:  Breast Cancer Risks and Prevention

 Window Of Hope

For more about breast cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.



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