According to a study by Dr. Clark, black women accounted for less than 10% of the 208,587 cases of uterine cancer diagnosed in the United States between 2000 and 2017, but about 16,797 during that period. It accounted for almost 18% of uterine cancer deaths.
Dr. Clark reports that uterine cancer mortality in black women is 31.4 per 100,000 women over the age of 40, compared to 15.2 per 100,000 white women of the same age group. (A comparable mortality rate for Asian-American women was 9 per 100,000, and for Hispanic-Americans it was 12.3 per 100,000.)
It makes uterine cancer outliers as progress has been made in the last two decades towards narrowing the racial gap in most cancer mortality rates. Another National Cancer Institute report published in May at JAMA Oncology, as a whole, Cancer mortality has decreased From 1999 to 2019, it has steadily increased among black Americans, but remains higher than other racial and ethnic groups.
The reasons for the increasing number of cases of uterine cancer are not well understood. The most common form of endometrial cancer is associated with increased estrogen exposure in the presence of obesity, and obesity rates are increasing in the United States.
However, the prevalence of non-endometrial cancer is also increasing and has nothing to do with overweight. A study by Dr. Clark found that black women were more likely to have this aggressive form of uterine cancer. They are less likely to be diagnosed in the early stages of the disease, and survival rates deteriorate at any time and with any cancer subtype.
“There are different consequences at every stage of the diagnosis,” said Dr. Karen Knusen, Chief Executive Officer of the American Cancer Society. “Are they receiving the same quality of cancer treatment?” She wants to investigate further on the factors driving the trend.
