Abstract
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive breast cancer subtype that disproportionately affects BRCA1 mutation carriers and young women of African origin. There is evidence that African-American women with TNBC have worse clinical outcomes than women of European descent. However, it is unclear whether survival differences persist after adjusting for disparities in access to health-care treatment, co-morbid disease and income. It remains controversial whether TNBC in African-American women is a molecularly distinct disease or whether African-American women have a higher incidence of aggressive biology driven by disparities: there is evidence in support of both. Understanding the relative contributions of biology and disparities is essential for improving the poor survival rate of African-American women with TNBC.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by US National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute (NIH/NCI) grants R01CA155664, R01CA158668, R01CA170851 (to V.L.S.) and CA155664-03S1 (to C.S.), a Susan G. Komen Breast Promise Award (KG091020; to V.L.S.) and a V-Foundation Award (to V.L.S.). This work was also funded by a gift from F. Stanback and A. Stanback. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.
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Dietze, E., Sistrunk, C., Miranda-Carboni, G. et al. Triple-negative breast cancer in African-American women: disparities versus biology. Nat Rev Cancer 15, 248–254 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc3896
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc3896
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