Studying Breast Cancer in African-American Women
THE WOMEN’S CIRCLE OF HEALTH STUDY based at CINJ and led by Elisa 
Bandera,
MD, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology at RWJMS, was awarded $1.6 million in
funding over the next five years to continue to recruit women and to expand the study’s
target area. Compared to Caucasian women, African-American women are more likely to
be diagnosed with breast cancer at a younger age and a later stage, and have more
aggressive features associated with a poor prognosis. To address these issues, CINJ will
increase its current research efforts as part of a new consortium. The Women’s Circle of
Health Study, the Carolina Breast Cancer Study, the Black Women’s Health Study, and
the Multiethnic Cohort Study will examine 5,500 women with breast cancer and 5,500
women without cancer, representing the largest study of its kind to date. Since 2006,
more than 2,400 African-American and Caucasian women from Bergen, Essex, Hudson,
Mercer, Middlesex, Passaic and Union counties have participated. The latest award
allows CINJ investigators to include Burlington and Monmouth counties in their target
area. Investigators are gathering demographic and medical information, as well as
reproductive, lifestyle and diet histories. Saliva and tumor samples are also collected for
molecular analyses.
|
