July 1 (UPI) -- The differences in risk for death from breast cancer between racial groups in Florida have narrowed in the last 30 years, according to a study published Thursday by the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.
Breast cancer deaths have declined more for Black and Hispanic women since 1990 than for White women in the state, the data showed.
However, Black women still have a two-fold higher risk for death from the disease at both five and 10 years after their diagnosis, compared with White women, the study showed.
"Over the past three decades, we've seen an improvement in breast cancer survival for all women, especially for minority women, which is encouraging," study co-author Robert Hines said in a press release.
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"We need to celebrate the progress we make, but we have a ways to go to produce equitable outcomes for women diagnosed with breast cancer," said Hines, an associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
The findings are based on an analysis of breast cancer cases and deaths in Florida, according to Hines and his colleagues.
The researchers obtained records for more than 250,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer between 1990 and 2015 from the Florida Cancer Data System, which tracks cancer cases in the state.
Just under 80% of the study population were women who self-identified as non-Hispanic White, while nearly 11% identified as non-Hispanic Black and 10% Hispanic White.
For all racial and ethnic groups, breast cancer deaths declined gradually from 1990 to 2015, according to the researchers.
In non-Hispanic White women, 10-year mortality decreased to 14% between 2010 and 2015 from 21% between 1990 and 1994, while for non-Hispanic Black women it dropped from 36% to 26% over the same period.
In the most recent 10 years surveyed, no significant differences occurred in five- or 10-year mortality rates between Hispanic White and non-Hispanic White women.
However, when the researchers normalized the mortality data based on age, insurance status, census-tract poverty, tumor stage and grade at diagnosis and treatment received, the 10-year breast cancer mortality rate for Black women was just 20% higher than that of White women, suggesting that access to quality care may be a key factor in disparities.
Nationally, deaths from breast cancer have declined over the past 30 years due to advancements in treatment, according to the American Cancer Society.
Still, Black women tend to be diagnosed later -- and thus with more advanced disease -- than women of other racial and ethnic groups, the cancer society said.
"Since the '80s, there's been increasing awareness of the disparities in breast cancer mortality and the troubling fact that they've grown over time," Hines said.
"There's been a huge investment in decreasing or eliminating these disparities, but we wanted to see if it's been effective," he said.
