Breast Cancer

Breast cancer profiles of women presenting with newly diagnosed breast cancer at Universitas Hospital (Bloemfontein, South Africa)

Breast cancer is arguably the most-researched cancer in the world. Environmental factors, including diet and lifestyle, have been widely investigated, but these variables have not been able to explain international or ethnic variability in breast cancer.

Breast cancer is most common among whites and Asian and is the second most common in Africans and colored.  In South Africa an alarming increase in the incidence of breast cancer among young black women, a group that was previously considered to have the lowest breast cancer risk, is reported.3 There are several possible reasons why increasingly more young women appear to be contracting breast cancer

Matatiele & Van den Heever.  (2008)  stated that women with different racial or ethnic backgrounds have different breast cancer risks, due to environmental and genetic factors.4 In South Africa breast cancer is most prevalent amongst Asian (24.4%) and white (17.9%) women.3 In our study we also found that more white (46%) than black (41%) and coloured (13%) women had breast cancer. Our study group consisted largely (63%) of postmenopausal, older women. However, a small portion of our study group consisted of young (≤ 39 yrs) breast cancer sufferers, the majority (4 of 5) of whom were black women. It has always been thought that the low incidence of breast cancer among black African women is due to the fact that they usually have their first child at an early age and are multiparous.

Even though reproduction has a complex effect on breast cancer, the emphasis has always been on the positive effects; however, our results showed that 92% of the women had at least more than one full-term pregnancy with an average of three children each. Similar studies also report that even though multiple pregnancies and young age at first full-term pregnancy are very common in the developing world, early onset breast cancer is also unexpectedly highly prevalent.1 Moreover, American studies have also shown that early onset breast cancer is more common among African-American women than among white women and, more importantly, that multiparity increases the risk of breast cancer in these women.