scholarly journals ZDHHC3 as a Risk and Mortality Marker for Breast Cancer in African American Women

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 117693511774664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Kinney ◽  
Robin T Varghese ◽  
Ramu Anandakrishnan ◽  
Harold R “Skip” Garner

African American woman are 43% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women and have increased the risk of tumor recurrence despite lower incidence. We investigate variations in microsatellite genomic regions—a type of repetitive DNA—and possible links to the breast cancer mortality gap. We screen 33 854 microsatellites in germline DNA of African American women with and without breast cancer: 4 are statistically significant. These are located in the 3′ UTR (untranslated region) of gene ZDHHC3, an intron of transcribed pseudogene INTS4L1, an intron of ribosomal gene RNA5-8S5, and an intergenic region of chromosome 16. The marker in ZDHHC3 is interesting for 3 reasons: (a) the ZDHHC3 gene is located in region 3p21 which has already been linked to early invasive breast cancer, (b) the Kaplan-Meier estimator demonstrates that ZDHHC3 alterations are associated with poor breast cancer survival in all racial/ethnic groups combined, and (c) data from cBioPortal suggest that ZDHHC3 messenger RNA expression is significantly lower in African Americans compared with whites. These independent lines of evidence make ZDHHC3 a candidate for further investigation.

Author(s):  
Shelley White-Means ◽  
Jill Dapremont ◽  
Barbara D Davis ◽  
Tronlyn Thompson

This qualitative descriptive research study looks at the services that community-based breast cancer support agencies provide to underserved and African American women who are at risk for or diagnosed with breast cancer in Memphis, Tennessee. We seek their understanding of breast cancer mortality disparities in Memphis. Data were collected using semi-structured in-depth focus groups with five breast cancer support agencies. Categories and patterns were established using thematic analysis and a deductive a priori template of codes. Thematic analysis is a method for identifying, analyzing, and reporting themes within the data. The main themes identified within support agencies for African American women with breast cancer who live in Memphis were barriers to the use of services, education, health system support, and emotional support. Numerous sub themes included cost of medications, support group supplemental programming, eligibility for mobile services, patient/provider communication, optimism about the future, and family advice. Procrastinating, seeking second options, fearfulness, insurance, childcare, and transportation were barriers to care. Community-based breast cancer support agencies play a critical role as connectors for women with breast cancer who live in medically underserved areas and must find their way within a fragmented medical care system.


2004 ◽  
Vol 22 (13) ◽  
pp. 2554-2566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanne S. Mandelblatt ◽  
Clyde B. Schechter ◽  
K. Robin Yabroff ◽  
William Lawrence ◽  
James Dignam ◽  
...  

Purpose Historically, African American women have experienced higher breast cancer mortality than white women, despite lower incidence. Our objective was to evaluate whether costs of increasing rates of screening or application of intensive treatment will be off-set by survival benefits for African American women. Methods We use a stochastic simulation model of the natural history of breast cancer to evaluate the incremental societal costs and benefits of status quo versus targeted biennial screening or treatment improvements among African Americans 40 years of age and older. Main outcome measures were number of mammograms, stage, all-cause mortality, and discounted costs per life year saved (LYS). Results At the current screening rate of 76%, there is little incremental benefit associated with further increasing screening, and the costs are high: $124,053 and $124,217 per LYS for lay health worker and patient reminder interventions, respectively, compared with the status quo. Using reminders would cost $51,537 per LYS if targeted to virtually unscreened women or $78,130 per LYS if targeted to women with a two-fold increase in baseline risk. If all patients received the most intensive treatment recommended, costs increase but deaths decrease, for a cost of $52,678 per LYS. Investments of up to $6,000 per breast cancer patient could be used to enhance treatment and still yield cost-effectiveness ratios of less than $75,000 per LYS. Conclusion Except in pockets of unscreened or high-risk women, further investments in interventions to increase screening are unlikely to be an efficient use of resources. Ensuring that African American women receive intensive treatment seems to be the most cost-effective approach to decreasing the disproportionate mortality experienced by this population.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelley White-Means ◽  
Jill Dapremont ◽  
Muriel Rice ◽  
Barbara Davis ◽  
Okoia Stoddard

This research is part two of a study to gain understanding of reasons for the large breast cancer mortality disparity between African-American and White women who live in Memphis, Tennessee. Among the country’s 25 largest cities, the breast cancer mortality disparity is highest in Memphis, Tennessee, where African-American women are twice as likely to die from breast cancer as White women. In part one of this study, we sought to gain the perspective of African-American breast cancer survivors. Now we explore the perspective from the providers of care who interface with breast cancer patients, health systems, and health insurers. This is a descriptive research study that used qualitative methodology to inteview seven medical, surgical and radiation oncologists who serve African-American breast cancer patients in Memphis. Data were collected using semi-structured in-depth interviews. Themes included: (1) socioeconomic factors; (2) lack of knowledge about treatment, progression and side effects, and diagnosis; (3) information/communication about the diagnosis; (4) support system: need for another person to process information given; (5) limited access and resources: no insurance and no available services for treatment in African-American neighborhoods; and (6) fear of the unknown: fear of cancer, fear of losing breast, and fear about the disease’s impact on personal relationships. These results suggest that resources that aid geographical access to services need to change in order for disparities to decrease. A new model for health care delivery for African-American women at high risk of or diagnosed with breast cancer needs to be developed to address these findings.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 36-42
Author(s):  
Dr. K. Radah ◽  
G. Gayathri

African American women have been silenced and kept ignorant by the dominant culture and it is the human need to create and maintain a true self in a social context. However, such an endeavor becomes an ordeal for those who are doubly oppressed, for those who are muted and mutilated physically and psychically through the diabolic crossfire of caste/race, sex and colonialism. This paper focuses on, an African American Woman, throughout her journey of life, seeking completeness in terms of family, society and community level.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johnathan Abou-Fadel ◽  
Brian Grajeda ◽  
Xiaoting Jiang ◽  
Alyssa-Marie Cailing-De La O ◽  
Esmeralda Flores ◽  
...  

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer worldwide and remains the second leading cause of cancer death. While breast cancer mortality has steadily declined over the past decades through medical advances, an alarming disparity in breast cancer mortality has emerged between African American women (AAW) and Caucasian American women (CAW); and new evidence suggests more aggressive behavior of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in AAW may contribute to racial differences in tumor biology and mortality. Progesterone (PRG) is capable of exerting its cellular effects through either its classic, non-classic or combined responses through binding to either classic nuclear PRG receptors (nPRs) or non-classic membrane PRG receptors (mPRs), warranting both pathways an equally important status in PRG-mediated signaling. In our previous report, we demonstrated that the CCM signaling complex (CSC) consisting of CCM1, CCM2, and CCM3 proteins can couple both nPRs and mPRs signaling cascades to form a CSC-mPRs-PRG-nPRs (CmPn) signaling network in nPR positive(+) breast cancer cells. In this report, we furthered our research by establishing the CSC-mPRs-PRG (CmP) signaling network in nPR(-) breast cancer cells, demonstrating that a common core mechanism exists, regardless of nPR(+/-) cell type. This is the first report stating that inducible expression patterns exist between CCMs and major mPRs in TNBC cells. Furthermore, we firstly show mPRs in TNBC cells are localized in the nucleus and participate in nucleocytoplasmic shuttling in a coordinately synchronized fashion with CCM proteins under steroid actions, following the same cellular distribution as other well-defined steroid hormone receptors. Finally, for the first time, we deconvoluted the CmP signalosome by using multi-omics approaches, which helped us understand key factors within the CmP network, and identify 21 specific biomarkers with potential clinical applications associated with AAW-TNBC tumorigenesis. These novel biomarkers could have immediate clinical implications to dramatically improve health disparities among AAW-TNBCs.


Author(s):  
Jeannette Brown

Dr. Marie Maynard Daly received her PhD in Chemistry from Columbia University in 1947. Although she was hardly the first of her race and gender to engage in the field, she was the first African American woman to receive a PhD in chemistry in the United States. In this book, Jeannette Brown, an African American woman chemist herself, will present a wide-ranging historical introduction to the relatively new presence of African American women in the field of chemistry. It will detail their struggles to obtain an education and their efforts to succeed in a field in which there were few African American men, much less African American women. The book contains sketches of the lives of African America women chemists from the earliest pioneers up until the late 1960's when the Civil Rights Acts were passed and greater career opportunities began to emerge. In each sketch, Brown will explore women's motivation to study the field and detail their often quite significant accomplishments. Chapters focus on chemists in academia, industry, and government, as well as chemical engineers, whose career path is very different from that of the tradition chemist. The book concludes with a chapter on the future of African American women chemists, which will be of interest to all women interested in science.


2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e12501-e12501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Marie Loch ◽  
John Estrada ◽  
Thomas Reske ◽  
Xiangrong Li ◽  
Vivien Chen ◽  
...  

e12501 Background: For years clinicians have made the empirical observation that there is an unusually high number of African American women (AAW) with triple-negative (Tneg) breast cancer (BC) in New Orleans (NO). Knowing the rate of Tneg BC in AAW is higher than white women (WW), we explored the hypothesis that AAW in NO have a higher rate of Tneg BC when compared to AAW in the rest of Louisiana (LA). Methods: We analyzed data from the Louisiana Tumor Registry, one of the NCI funded SEER registries, for the tumor characteristics of invasive female BC diagnosed in 2010, focusing on racial disparities; HER2 status was not available for prior to 2010 diagnosis. We explored the association of HER2 status with age, race, ER, PR, HER2, T, N, M to determine crude and adjusted odds ratios and rate distribution of subtypes using SEER*Stat and SAS programs. Results: Overall age-adjusted incidence rate of Tneg BC in AAW was 30 per 100,000 in NO, which was 24% higher than that in AAW in the rest of LA and two-fold the rate in WW of both NO and LA. The highest rate of Tneg BC was seen in AAW aged 65-69 in NO (184.97 per 100,000) compared with 81.5 per 100,000 in AAW aged 55-59 in LA. AAW with Tneg BC in NO were more likely to have more aggressive BC. Young age, black race, large tumor size, higher grade and TNM stage were significantly associated with the high risk of Tneg BC. After adjusting for age, geographic area, and other tumor characteristics, the higher risk of Tneg BC in AAW remained in NO compared with the rest of LA (OR=1.4; 95% CI: 1.01-1.87). Conclusions: AAW in NO are more likely to have poorly differentiated and Tneg BC compared to AAW in the rest of LA. This disparity remains when comparing our data to previously published literature in other parts of the US. We plan to continue our data analysis and compare NO data to the national average as the HER2 data become available in the SEER Program to better characterize the disparity. This newly identified disparity in the AAW population in NO has clinical implications and translational research potential as it enables us to broaden the understanding and treatment of this aggressive disease.


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