Breast Cancer impacting black women earlier

Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) is impacting black women at a younger age.
That’s according to Dr. Juliet Daniel, Professor and Cancer Biologist in the Department of Biology at McMaster University.
She said that women in Barbados diagnosed with TNBC, an aggressive breast cancer sub-type, are diagnosed younger than Barbadian women that are non-TNBC.

“And this is consistent with what is seen in the United States, where women as young as 30 are diagnosed with TNBC. As we know, most women at 30 are not even thinking about getting TNBC or even doing a breast self-exam, because most mammograms and recommendations are that you do a breast self-exam and mammograms in your 40’s or 50’s.

“So, this is one of the reasons that we are very concerned about this – that TNBC is impacting young black women at an age when they are not even thinking about breast cancer and consequently they are succumbing to this a lot earlier,” she explained.

Dr. Daniel’s research expertise is cell-cell adhesion and signalling through transcription factors, and how their malfunction contributes to cancer. Her research led to her discovery and naming of a new gene “Kaiso”, coined after the popular Caribbean music “calypso”. Kaiso regulates the expression of genes that control cell proliferation and adhesion. Consequently, Kaiso’s malfunction in various human tumours – e.g. breast, colon, prostate – contributes to tumour progression and spread.

Dr. Daniel’s research team is currently focused on the aggressive and difficult to treat triple negative breast cancers that are most prevalent in young women of African ancestry and Hispanic women – groups that paradoxically have a lower incidence and lifetime risk of breast cancer.

She was at the time delivering the 2019 Olive Trotman Memorial Lecture “It’s In Your Genes: Cancer, Kaiso and the Audacity of a Bajan Girl”, at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, on Friday night.

The noted Researcher, who was born in Barbados, said that breast cancer is actually the most common type of female cancer in the world, which can be inherited genetically.

“But, most women actually get breast cancer through random DNA damage from environmental factors, such as smoking and the foods we eat, some of the toxins are in the foods which we eat.”

Dr. Daniel also shared that the incidence of breast cancer world-wide is approximately 1 in 9 women, and 1 in 28 women will die from it. She said that men also develop breast cancer and every year approximately 200 men are diagnosed and approximately 60 men die every year from breast cancer.

“…In the ‘80s the survival rate from breast cancer was only about 50 percent or so, however the five year survival rate is now almost 90 per cent. So breast cancer is very treatable if is discovered early and treated. So, that is the good news.

“However, the bad news is that triple negative breast cancer that is disproportionately affecting black women, does not have any specific targeted drugs to treat it,” she said.

Moreover, Dr. Daniel noted that black women tend to actually have a lower incidence of breast cancer, “we actually don’t get breast cancer as much as Caucasian women. But when we do get breast cancer, we seem to be getting this very fatal triple negative breast cancer sub-type”.

“Kaiso expression is very high in triple negative breast tumour cells… And it turns out kaiso expression also correlates with poor survival of TNBC patients,” she added. (TL)

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