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A new breast cancer study is to examine why women from ethnic minority backgrounds may be less likely to take up invitations for breast screening and women from Black Caribbean and Black African backgrounds are more likely to be diagnosed at a later stage.
Funded by Cancer Research UK, the study aims to understand the reasons behind these differences and find new ways to remove barriers and improve breast cancer outcomes for women from ethnic minority communities in the UK.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the UK, but analysis of national data has shown that women from Black Caribbean and Black African backgrounds are significantly more likely to have more advanced disease at diagnosis than White British women.
The three-year study will be led by Dr Toral Gathani, an academic and consultant cancer surgeon at the University of Oxford. It will use existing data from large national studies and the National Cancer Registry Service in England to look at breast cancer incidence rates and how breast cancer risk factors such as weight, alcohol intake and reproductive factors, may differ in different ethnic groups.
Breast cancer inequalities are unfair and avoidable
This builds on Gathani’s previous research showing that those from certain ethnic minority backgrounds had significantly greater odds of less favourable tumour characteristics compared to White women, and that these differences are more marked in Black compared to Asian groups.
The personal and genetic factors which influence breast cancer risk, and type of breast cancer at diagnosis, have not been examined in detail in different ethnic groups; Dr Gathani’s team will investigate the potential for establishing a large-scale study of this kind through surveys and interviews.
The research will be supported by an ethnically diverse Patient and Public Involvement Panel and a national Ethnicity and Breast Cancer Working Group comprising clinical and academic experts in healthcare and cancer research.
Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: “Cancer inequalities – unfair, avoidable and systemic differences between population groups – are present at every stage of the cancer experience, including the prevalence of cancer risk factors, screening uptake and barriers to seeking help.”