Health
Racial differences and disease
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted July 23, 2007
Differences between blacks and whites are emerging on two disease fronts. A study in the Aug. 15 Cancer found that black women are diagnosed with more advanced breast cancer than are white women.
The study, conducted in one hospital, found several differences in tumor types, including more estrogen receptor-negative pathology for blacks as well as more common prevalence of aggressive basal tumors.
Immune system differences also have been found in blacks with multiple sclerosis, possibly offering a clue as to why blacks experience more disability than whites with the disease, said a study in the July 3 Neurology.
"It remains possible that genes are unevenly distributed between ethnic groups to account for different susceptibility to some diseases," said study author John Rinker, MD, instructor in neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2007/07/23/hlbf0723.htm.
