Researchers Seek Genetic Factors for Breast Cancer Risk in Black Women | JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute | Oxford Academic

Researchers Seek Genetic Factors for Breast Cancer Risk in Black Women | JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute | Oxford Academic

Researchers Seek Genetic Factors for Breast Cancer Risk in Black Women

Sue Rochman

J Natl Cancer Inst (2017) 109 (5): djx112.

 

DOI:

 

https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djx112

Published:

 

22 May 2017

Racial and ethnic disparities in breast cancer incidence and outcomes are well documented. Socioeconomic factors, including lack of access to screening and high-quality treatment, are part of those disparities. Genetic factors may also explain why black women develop certain kinds of breast cancer or are less likely to respond to particular treatments.

Researchers are taking different approaches to uncover those genetic factors. Edward A. Ruiz-Narváez, Sc.D., associate professor of epidemiology at the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University, sought to identify genes associated with breast cancer risk that differ according to ancestry. To do so, his team used data collected on about 8,300 women in the four projects that make up the African American Breast Cancer Epidemiology and Risk (AMBER) consortium. A study published in the September 2016 Frontiers in Genetics (doi:10.3389/fgene.2016.00170) reported...