A few months ago, I wrote about the higher than normal breast cancer rates among Caribbean women. Earlier this month, news broke that Dr. Judith Hurley (University of Miami), who led the previous study, received a $600,000 grant from the Susan G. Comen Foundation to study the genetic characteristics of breast cancer in women in the region. The study will check for the rates of BRCA1 and BRCA2 among women in the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Dominica and Trinidad and Tobago. A previous study in Bahamas found that 23% of women with breast cancer had the genes.
“If you can begin to get ideas on how to deal with breast cancer in the African Caribbean group, maybe that window can be opened larger and you can start exporting that information to African American women,” said Hurley.
This is good news for women across the region, as well as for Caribbean and Black women everywhere.
Source: Barbados’ Nation News
Caribbean Health Communication Blog 