Our team of experts brings you cancer-related news and research updates.
ACS researchers report and explain statistics about breast cancer in a new article in CA: Cancer Journal for Clinicians and in Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2022-2024.
New Cancer Facts & Figures for African American/Black People finds breast cancer now surpasses lung as the leading cause of cancer death in Black women.
Cherly Knott, PhD, developed Project HEAL to help raise awareness about cancer prevention and screening for breast, prostate, & colorectal cancer. Learn more.
One disease that disproportionately affects the Black community is colorectal cancer. The rates of colorectal cancer are higher in Blacks than any racial/ethnic group in the US. African Americans are about 20% more likely to get colorectal cancer and about 40% more likely to die from it than most other groups.
It’s true that people with darker skin have a lower risk of melanoma. But as a recent study showed, it’s also true that non-Hispanic Black Americans are more likely to have lower survival rates when they are diagnosed. That’s partly because compared with non-Hispanic whites, people with darker skin are more often diagnosed with later-stage melanoma (after it’s spread). It’s also because the most common type of melanoma among non-Hispanic Blacks—called acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM)—has a lower survival rate.
We’ve known for a while that triple-negative breast cancer is more common in Black women in the United States, compared to other groups. The news is the prevalence varies significantly depending on where these women were born. American Cancer Society (ACS) researchers found that among Black women, those born in the US and Western Africa were diagnosed more often with triple-negative breast cancer than women born in East Africa. The authors published their findings in Cancer, an ACS peer-reviewed journal.
American Cancer Society epidemiologist Carol DeSantis, lead author of Cancer Statistics for African Americans, 2016, shares her take on cancer disparities.
The American Cancer Society’s Cancer Facts and Figures for African Americans reveals positive trends and significant disparities. Get the highlights.