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Breast Cancer in Women of African Descent pp 249–266Cite as

Palliative Care for Breast Cancer in the African-American Population

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Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among African-American women, but its incidence is 13% lower than that in Caucasian women. The incidence slowly rose in the decade of the 1970’s but was fairly stable during the 1990’s. The death rate increased between 1973 and 1993 but it has declined since. In spite of this decline, the death rate is still 28% higher in African-American than in Caucasian women. There are likely to be many factors, which contribute to this higher death rate, including access to quality screening and treatment, late diagnosis and perhaps even more aggressive tumour biology (1).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dartmouth Medical School and the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, Hanover, NH, USA

    Joseph O’Donnell MD

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  1. Joseph O’Donnell MD
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. British Columbia Cancer Agency, Nanaimo, Canada

    Christopher Kwesi O. Williams (Senior Editor) (Senior Editor)

  2. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Christopher Kwesi O. Williams (Senior Editor) (Senior Editor)

  3. University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Olufunmilayo I. Olopade (Editor) (Editor)

  4. University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Cancer Center, Birmingham, AL, USA

    Carla I. Falkson (Editor) (Editor)

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© 2006 Springer

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O’Donnell, J. (2006). Palliative Care for Breast Cancer in the African-American Population. In: Williams, C.K.O., Olopade, O.I., Falkson, C.I. (eds) Breast Cancer in Women of African Descent. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-3664-4_10

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