United States: cancer worse for women of color

Off Our Backs, Jul/Aug 2004 by Christian, Sena, Stachowski, Roxanne, Ferden, Sara, Walter, Shoshana

WASHINGTON, DC-According to the nation's annual report on cancer, published on June 3, lung cancer is decreasing among women overall, although women of color are much more likely than white women to die from cancer.

Black women are 52 percent more likely to die of cancer than white women, and Hispanic women 20 percent more likely. Additionally, black women are more likely to die of breast cancer, even though that disease is more common among whites.

Lung cancer is the number one cancer killer in the U.S.; however, the report shows that rates of female lung cancer diagnoses have declined by about 2 percent a year since 1998, and female death rates from lung cancer have leveled off, remaining virtually unchanged since 1995.

"For the first time, we are turning the corner in the lung cancer epidemic in women," said Ahmedin Jemal of the American Cancer Society, who co-wrote the report.

The report also found that more people are living at least five years after a diagnosis of most types of cancer. For women, the biggest survival improvements came in colon, kidney and breast cancer. For instance, five-year survival for breast cancer is 88 percent, up from 75 percent in the 1970s. However, survival continues to be strongly connected with how early the cancer is detected.