The first large-scale study of black women and breast cancer revealed some sobering news. According to a report from the Associated Press, the BRCA gene mutation, previously thought to be most common in women of Eastern European descent, is also prevalent in black women. Researchers say this explains why black breast cancer patients develop the disease at young ages and have lower chances of survival.
This mutation became more known after Angelina Jolie announced her double mastectomy. The children of someone with this gene mutation have a 50 percent chance of developing breast cancer.
In the study, which included women with cancer in their families as well as current cancer patients, about 20 percent of the breast cancer patients had the gene mutation, a result that surprised researchers. Because few black women had ever been part of these kinds of genetic studies, there was no sense of what the rates were, though doctors do understand of the BRCA gene mutation:
In the U.S., about 5 to 10 percent of breast cancers are thought to be due to bad BRCA genes. Among breast cancer patients, BRCA mutations are carried by 5 percent of whites and 12 percent of Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jews. The rates in other groups are not as well known.
Still, just because it was harder to detect the BRCA mutation in black women, doctors have long known that the hardest to treat breast cancer patients are often black. Women with cancer and several cases of cancer in their families didn’t appear to have the gene when screened with ordinary testing methods. While the news is scary for study participants, some say they will seek genetic counseling for themselves and their families.