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Saturday, June 29, 2013

Cancer Risk For Black Men

Active surveillance of slow-growing prostate cancer may be a bad idea for black men.

A Johns Hopkins study of more than 1,800 men ages 52 to 62 suggests that African-Americans diagnosed with very-low-risk prostate cancers are much more likely than white men to actually have aggressive disease that goes unrecognized with current diagnostic approaches.



Prior studies found it safe to delay treatment and monitor the slow-growing cancers, which is okay for white men, but not a good idea for black men.

And yesterday Tara Soares, executive director of Bermuda Cancer and Health, said that black Bermudian men should be tested for the disease earlier than their white counterparts.

Ms Soares said: “There is a higher incidence of prostate cancer being diagnosed in men of African descent and we know that prostate cancer in that group does occur at an earlier age.

“Men of African descent should start seeing their doctor at the age of 40 and have a test.”

Prostate cancer is the second-biggest cause of cancer death in men after lung cancer, according to the US Centres for Disease Control.

Urologist Dr Edward Schaeffer, a co-author of the study, said: “This study offers the most conclusive evidence to date that broad applications of active surveillance recommendations may not be suitable for African-Americans.

“This is critical information because if African American men do have more aggressive cancers, as statistics would suggest, then simply monitoring even small cancers that are very low risk would not be a good idea because aggressive cancers are less likely to be cured.

“We think that we are following a small non-aggressive cancer, but in reality, this study highlights that in black men, these tumours are sometimes more aggressive than previously thought.

“It turns out that black men have a much higher chance of having a more aggressive tumour developing in a location that is not easily sampled by a standard prostate biopsy.”

And Dr Schaeffer said: “Alternate race-specific surveillance entry criteria should be developed and utilized for African American men to ensure oncological parity with their white counterparts. 

Our research team, in collaboration with internationally-recognised Hopkins pathologist Dr Jonathan Epstein, is currently developing new race-based risk tables that begin to solve this key issue.

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