It has been known to some considerable time that the numbers of African American women who die from breast cancer [breast cancer types]are considerably higher than those of white American women.
Now the highly respected International Journal of Cancer has published a report that may explain why just under 40% of African American breast cancer victims die compared to 33% of white American women.
Research carried out by the San Francisco-based University of California, indicates that an average higher blood pressure in African American women is the core of the mortality problem.
The research conducted by Dr. Dejana Braithwaite examined records of black and white breast cancer patients recorded from 1973 for the next 13 years up until 1986. They then did all investigations to find out what happened to these patients up until 1999.
They discovered that there was one correlating figure that when compared to the death rate showed a clear connection. Of the black women with breast cancer, over 43% were suffering from high blood pressure compared to just over 28% of white women.
This was the only detectable difference in the overall picture of the medical records of the two groups. According to the research over 30%, more black women who contracted breast cancer eventually died from the condition compared to their Caucasian counterparts.
Their conclusions are that African American women need to pay more attention to their overall health and weight in order to reduce their blood pressure and through that increase their chances of surviving a breast cancer event.
