I've been involved with the Race for the Cure in the past by leading an effort to do two symposiums in relation to the race. I was asked to serve as honorary chair and I accepted because I like to try to give back to the community in any way that I can. An estimated 19,300 new cases of breast cancer are expected to occur among African-American women in 2001. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among African-American women, although the incidence rate of newly diagnosed cases is about 13 percent lower in black women than in white women. Experts predict an estimated 58,000 deaths from breast cancer are expected to occur among African-American women this year.
Breast cancer is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in elderly women.
Each year about 50 percent of the 185,000 new cases of breast cancer in the USA occur in women younger than 65 years of age. The risk of developing breast cancer is much greater than dying of it. Among white women, 6.53 percent and 4.7 percent of black women younger than 65 years develop breast cancer, but only 1.53 and 1.14, respectively, die of it. Breast cancer in men, which also increases with age, accounts for 1 percent of all new cases. Breast cancers have the same clinical characteristics in elderly women as in younger women.