Blacks are more likely to die of cancer than whites in the Palmetto State and at rates well above the national average, University of South Carolina officials said Tuesday, announcing new findings that mirror other studies on racial disparities in cancer cases.
Researchers can’t explain the racial differences in cancer rates, but several well-known issues — including a lack of adequate health care — may be contributing factors, said James Herbert, lead author of the new study and professor at USC’s Arnold School of Public Health.
“These racial differences tend to be more extreme in the Southeast than the rest of the country and they tend to be worst or more dramatic in South Carolina than they are for the Southeast region as a whole,” he said.
Researchers compared the number of cancer cases and cancer deaths from 2001 to 2005 with national averages and created what they say are the first-ever maps tracking the ratio of South Carolina deaths based on incidence of specific cancers. The data compares cancer rates among men and women and among blacks and whites.
The largest racial disparities were among deaths from prostate, oral and female breast cancers — three categories where blacks in South Carolina die at rates at least 10 percent higher than the national average, the data shows.
In comparing breast cancer in white and black women for example, death rates for white South Carolina women diagnosed with the disease are at or below the national average for all but 16 of the state’s 46 counties. In black women, however, that rate is more than 20 percent higher than the U.S. average for all but eight counties.
The breast cancer death rate is at least 24 percent for most black women in South Carolina, compared to 20 percent for most white women.
African-American males had the highest overall cancer death rates. The oral cancer death rate in black men in South Carolina is nearly twice as high as it is in white males, 44 percent compared to 23 percent.
Herbert said blacks smoke just two-thirds as much as whites but have a rate of smoking-related cancers that is seven times higher. Researchers also found that cancer tends to be more aggressive and occur at younger ages in blacks in South Carolina.
“The first step is identifying the fact that the disparities exist and trying to determine if we can look at any particular parameters that show us where they exist more than others,” said Diane Gluck, board president of the South Carolina Cancer Alliance. “I think we have a pretty good picture now of what’s going on. What we don’t have is a good picture of why.”
Research showing racial disparities among cancer patients has been well documented.
A 2007 study led by a researcher at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center showed that breast cancer may be more deadly in black women because they are more likely to have tumors that do not respond to hormone-based treatments. A report by the Missouri Department of Health and state Cancer Registry found that blacks in that state were closing the racial gap for new diagnosed cases, but death rates for black cancer patients were not improving as quickly.
“We need to do more research to deepen our understanding about what’s happening and make it possible for public health officials and clinicians to start targeting their activities at the places where it’s going to make the most difference,” Herbert said.
Researchers are using the findings to apply for federal grants and hope to start new projects to track cancer cases in South Carolina. The findings were published in the June issue of the American Cancer Society’s journal “Cancer.”
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