Black Women, Breast Cancer and the Tests That Can Save Lives Agendia is committed to addressing racial disparities by ensuring the company’s tests work equally across diverse patient populations and by focusing on promoting diversity in clinical trials.
New York, NY
|
November 01, 2022 10:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
A video accompanying this announcement is available at: https://youtu.be/13nWSPuDIAs
The death rate from breast cancer continues to decline, according to a new report from the American Cancer Society. But there's a wide, worrisome gap in Black women's outcomes that remains unchanged.
Black women are more likely to die from breast cancer than white women. While breast cancer incidence rates among Black and white women are close, mortality rates are markedly different, with Black women having a 41% higher death rate from breast cancer.
Black women are disproportionally affected by more aggressive breast cancers because of their biology. A recent study showed that Black women are significantly more likely to have genomically High Risk tumors compared to white women, despite having the same clinical factors. This means that, all other things the same – right down to their age and the size of their tumors – the Black women in the study were more likely to have a more aggressive type of cancer.
The way we can address some of these disparities is through genomic tests like MammaPrint and BluePrint, which look at 150 important genes within a tumor to estimate the risk of recurrence of that cancer.
The number of genes/RNA analyzed by MammaPrint and BluePrint is higher than any other test, and captures the diversity of pathways that allows for consistent results regardless of race and ethnicity. With that information, we as physicians can make more informed decisions with our patients about what their optimal treatment plan should be.
There are a few available genomic tests utilized in the clinic to guide discussions around chemotherapy benefit. One example is MammaPrint/BluePrint which are the most comprehensive tests with the most consistent results across diverse groups of patients, compared to other tests.
In addition, only the BluePrint test can catch tumor subtypes that may look less dangerous, but actually behave more like triple negative breast cancer when you further classify. This is a very aggressive kind of cancer, that is over-represented among Black women.
It is very important the gene expression profiling result a woman receives about her tumor is consistent and reliable regardless of her ethnicity and race, like MammaPrint and BluePrint’s. Studies showing mis-categorization of risk in minority populations due to under-representation of these patients in genomic studies and clinical trials that lead to the approval of these tests is alarming.
Every woman with breast cancer has the right to know the correct and clear biological information from her tumor, regardless of her skin color, so she can make timely decisions about her treatment with her care team.
For more information about gene expression profiling, including resources that can help you talk to your doctor to make sure the test being offered will work best and most accurately for you, go to Agendia.com.
Contact Details
YourUpdateTV
+1 212-736-2727
