Is recent decline in breast cancer incidence equal across different US racial groups?
Adding data to an ongoing debate about the causes of a recent decline in breast cancer incidence, researchers report that the decline is confined to white women and may be due to their use of hormone replacement therapy to treat symptoms of menopause. “Non-Hispanic whites were more likely to use hormone replacement therapy, and had similar percent reduction of discontinuation after the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] warned about its link to breast cancer in 2003, so the benefit of a reduction in breast cancer was more pronounced,” said Dezheng Huo, M.D., Ph.D., research associate professor in the Health Studies Department at the University of Chicago. Between 2002 and 2003, scientists observed a sharp decline in breast cancer incidence in the United States but only among women older than 50 years who had estrogen-receptor positive cancer. Reasons for the decline have been hotly debated in the research and medical community. Using data from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveilla
