Hispanic Women Are Prone to Earlier and More Dangerous Breast Cancer

Recent researches linked a higher and more dangerous incidence of breast cancer in Black women compared to White women, and this difference seemed to be connected to genetic factors.

Now, a new research reveals a similar difference between Hispanic women and non-Hispanic women in US, also linked more to biological factors rather than access to healthcare system.

Analyzing breast cancer cases in a managed health care system, the researchers from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Denver, discovered that in cases of similar access to healthcare systems, Hispanic women were significantly more prone for being diagnosed with more advanced and more aggressive tumors and at a younger age than other women.

Even so, breast cancer was more common among White women compared to other races but in the case of the Hispanic women, the symptoms were more advanced and with a worse outcome.

Increasing evidence shows that genetic factors are found behind these racial differences.

The research team analyzed demographic and clinical traits of 139 Hispanic and 2118 non-Hispanic women diagnosed with breast cancer in similar access healthcare system, like mammography and regular primary care physician visits.

Hispanic women displayed a more aggressive condition and at younger ages than women from other ethnic groups, even when the researchers eliminated socioeconomic factors and the length of time passed in the system.

The average age of the diagnostic for Hispanic women was 56 years old compared to 61 in non-Hispanic women.

Hispanic women were found almost three times more likely to display the stage IV cancer; and about two times more likely to have larger (and of course, more dangerous) tumors.

"The persistent findings of earlier mean age at diagnosis, advanced state, poorer grade, larger tumor size and fewer cases with estrogen receptors may suggest that true biological differences exist in breast cancer by ethnicity," wrote the researchers.