The death rate for women with metastatic breast cancer is linked to the number of chronic health conditions they have, according to a study by the University of Michigan in partnership with the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation.
Black and/or African-American women had the highest risk of death and rate of chronic conditions — including obesity, diabetes and hypertension — compared to all other races and ethnicities, the research found. Asian and/or Pacific Islander women were also at increased risk of death.
Given the high screening rates and advances in treatment, breast cancer can often be managed like a chronic condition when it’s diagnosed at an early stage (5-year survival rates for early-stage breast cancer are close to 99%.) However, the 5-year survival rate among women with metastatic breast cancer is only 30% across all races and ethnicities — and only 21% for Black women.
The research included nearly 1,000 women diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer between January 2009 and December 2017.
Almost half of the patients were women of color, which is important for many reasons including that women of color tend to be diagnosed at later stages of breast cancer than white women. About 17% of the population studied had diabetes and 45% had hypertension.
Overall, women with at least one chronic health condition were more than three times as likely to die as those without any comorbidities. Similar associations were found for breast-cancer-specific mortality.
