"It's the Kind that Black Women Get": IBC and the African American Community

"My friend died of breast cancer.  She wouldn't get any treatment.  It was that kind that black women get."

I had just met Bea, and in the course of our getting-to-know-each-other chat, she had mentioned that her husband was a one-year survivor of an aggressive cancer.  So I shared my story about being an eleven-year survivor of Stage IIIB breast cancer. 

When Bea, who is African-American, said that her friend had the kind of cancer "black women get," I suspected that she might have had Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) because the incidence of IBC is much higher among African-Americans. 

The IBC Research Foundation  reports that 10% of breast cancer cases in African-Americans are IBC.  Although statistics vary on the percentage of IBC cases in the overall breast cancer population, it is usually estimated to be between 1-5%.  So the rate of IBC in African-Americans is at least double that among whites.  In a 2004 presentation at George Washington University, Dr. William F. Anderson showed study data revealing that although black women comprise only 8.4% of all breast cancer cases, they make up 12.6% of all IBC cases.

Those numbers were in the back of my mind as I talked with Bea.  But since there has been recent publicity about the higher incidence of triple negative breast cancer in that population, I said, "Was it a triple negative cancer?"  No, that didn't sound right.  "Inflammatory breast cancer?"  Yes, that was it.

Bea was amazed when I told her that I had also had IBC because she thought that only black women got it.  She also didn't know much about the symptoms. She didn't know that breast cancer doesn't always start with a lump. She was devastated that her friend didn't get conventional medical treatment because she knew how effective it can be from her husband's experience.

I found my conversation with Bea disturbing.  She struck me as a person with an above average knowledge about cancer because of her experience with her husband.  Yet she didn't know some important facts about a deadly form of breast cancer for which her ethnic group is at risk.

There have been many studies trying to understand why African American women have a higher mortality rate from breast cancer.  The National Women's Health Information Center web page explains it this way, "African American women are more likely than all other women to die from breast cancer. Tumors are found at a later, more advanced, stage so there are fewer treatment options. Some reasons for this may include not being able to get health care or not following-up after getting abnormal test results. Other reasons may include distrust of the health care system, the belief that mammograms are not needed, or not having insurance."

I read more than half a dozen similar articles that attributed the discrepancy in survival rates to a combination of more serious forms of breast cancer and lack of access to services.  None of the articles I read specifically mentioned inflammatory breast cancer.  The articles that included information about how to do a breast self-exam or when to see a doctor did not emphasize that not all breast cancer starts with a lump.