Endocrine therapy of breast cancer

Abstract

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in the Western world. Although the incidence of breast cancer in white women is higher than in black women, mortality from breast cancer is relatively higher in African- Americans. This has been shown in several large cancer surveillance studies (1-2). The survival disadvantage of African-American women is due to numerous factors, the most important of which is stage of disease at the time of diagnosis. It has been shown in multiple studies, that black women are more likely to present with more advanced disease (3-4), including more patients with inoperable breast cancer and with nodal involvement. The differences in breast cancer stage and biology at presentation between Caucasian and African-American patients are reviewed extensively in Chapters 2 and 3. © 2006 Springer.