Consistently Lower Cancer Survival Rates for Black Patients in U.S.

Scientific American --------- (Reuters Health) - Whether it's colon cancer, breast cancer, or ovarian cancer, survival rates in the U.S. are lower for black people than for white people, three new studies show. All three were published in the journal Cancer. In one, Dr. Arica White from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, and her team looked at colon cancer survival rates in 2001-2003 and 2004-2009. Overall, the proportion of patients still alive five years after diagnosis improved slightly between those two periods, from 63.7 percent to 64.6 percent. But five-year survival was lower among blacks (54.7 percent for 2001-2003 and 56.6 percent for 2004-2009) than among whites (64.5 percent and 65.4 percent, respectively). To learn more click on the picture below to read the article.