Taking cancer fight in her hands
Survivor: Black women must self-advocate
Coronavirus has revealed an alarming disparity in the health care African-Americans receive across the country, but Karen Peterson didn’t need a global pandemic to tell her that.
The Harlem mother is a childhood cancer survivor and has been battling an aggressive form of breast cancer that is twice as high among African-American women as it is among white women.
Her fight affirms a new study highlighting the toll that cancer takes on racial and ethnic minorities, a toll that includes, for Blacks, the highest overall cancer death rate of any racial or ethnic group in the U.S. for more than four decades.
According to the study, by the American Association for Cancer Research, there have been tremendous strides in the fight against cancer, but underserved populations, for the most part, have not benefited from the progress.
African-American men, for instance, have a prostate cancer death rate that is more than twice that for white men, the study said.
Hispanic children are 20% more likely to develop leukemia than non-Hispanic white children.
“Health disparities in general, and cancer health disparities in particular, are an enormous public health challenge,” said Margaret Foti, the executive officer of the association.
Sometimes, the only way around the disparity is to take matters into your own hands. That’s what Peterson, an African-American woman, did when she was diagnosed — for the second time — with an aggressive form of breast cancer in 2017.
In 2015, when she received the first diagnosis, Peterson had a double mastectomy followed by four rounds of a grueling chemotherapy regimen. Two years later, the cancer returned, and spread to her lungs, ribs, spine, and pelvis.
But instead of just listening to her oncologist, Peterson did her own research on clinical trial testing and cutting-edge treatments. A second oncologist suggested immunotherapy treatment that could take advantage of the immune cells in her tumors.
“I was told at the start of the trial that there was a 4% chance of it working,” Peterson said. “It was better than nothing. So I said, ‘Why not?’ I got lucky. Eight weeks later, scans showed that the tumors had shrunk by 72%.
Over time they shrank further, and there has been no evidence of cancer in my body for more than a year.”
Peterson said self-advocacy saved her life.
“By sharing my story, I hope to inspire other African-American women to become educated about their health care and to get involved in cancer research and clinical trials,” Peterson said.
“I understand the resistance within the African-American community to participating in research studies, but if we do not participate how can we complain that researchers are not working on our behalf?
“We need to be willing to take a chance and to demand to be included, and researchers and oncologists must make an effort to bridge the gap and include African-Americans in clinical trials.”