Breast cancer survival in African-American women by hormone receptor subtypes.
Breast cancer accounts for over 200,000 annual cases among women in the United States, and is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths. However, few studies have investigated the association between breast cancer subtype and survival among African-American women. We analyzed cancer-related deaths among African-American women using data obtained from the SEER database linked to the 2000 U.S. census data. We examined distribution of baseline socio-demographic and clinical characteristics by breast cancer subtypes and used Cox proportional hazard models to determine associations between breast cancer subtypes and cancer-related mortality, adjusting for age, socio-economic status, stage at diagnosis, and treatment. Among 19,836 female breast cancer cases, 54.4% were diagnosed with the HER2-/HR+ subtype, with the majority of those cases occurring among women ages 55 and older. However, after adjusting for age, stage, and treatment type (surgery, radiation, or no radiation and/or cancer-directed surgery), TNBC (HR 2.34; 95% CI 1.95-2.81) and HER2+/HR- (HR 1.39, 95% CI 1.08-1.79) cases had significantly higher hazards of cancer-related deaths compared with HER2+/HR+ cases. Adjusting for socio-economic status did not significantly alter these associations. African-American women with TNBC were more likely to have a cancer-related death than African-American women with other breast cancer subtypes. This association remained after adjustments for age, stage, treatment, and socio-economic status. Further studies are needed to identify subtype-specific risk and prognostic factors aimed at better informing prevention efforts for all women.
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- Young Adult
- United States
- SEER Program
- Risk Factors
- Receptors, Progesterone
- Receptors, Estrogen
- Receptor, erbB-2
- Receptor, ErbB-2
- Proportional Hazards Models
- Prognosis
Citation
Published In
DOI
EISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Location
Related Subject Headings
- Young Adult
- United States
- SEER Program
- Risk Factors
- Receptors, Progesterone
- Receptors, Estrogen
- Receptor, erbB-2
- Receptor, ErbB-2
- Proportional Hazards Models
- Prognosis