Data may help solve breast cancer riddle

Helen Rameka.

Maori death rate and higher survival in Australia among queries.

Researchers are on the verge of answering some of the troubling questions surrounding breast cancer in New Zealand.

For years, frustrated scientists have been unable to pinpoint why Australian patients have a better survival rate than Kiwis, or why mortality among Maori is more than 65 per cent higher than other women.

But it's expected the answers will lie among thousands of pages of information collected from breast cancer patients in Auckland and Waikato over the past 10 years.

Dr Reena Ramsaroop, chairwoman of the NZ Breast Cancer Foundation's medical advisory committee, said there was now enough data for researchers to begin forming a detailed picture of breast cancer factors here.

Fourteen years ago, all that existed was a national cancer register that did not give comprehensive information about breast cancer patients.

In 2000, the country's first register was formed in Auckland at the request of surgeons, radiologists, oncologists and breast care nurses. Details from more than 10,000 patients contributed to Auckland's register, which was followed by registers in Waikato and, more recently, Wellington and Christchurch.

One recent report suggested New Zealand's breast cancer mortality is around 20 per cent higher than Australia's - something Dr Ramsaroop could only speculate was because of access to drug treatments and differences in screening measures and resources.

She has just completed a study which found that Maori and Pacific Island women in greater Auckland were more likely to die from their breast cancer than European women.

"The Auckland register tells us that Pacific Island women are more likely to refuse chemotherapy, but there may be other reasons for their higher mortality."

A breast cancer tissue bank, in the process of being established in Auckland, would allow researchers to investigate whether there was anything at genomic level that contributed to the higher risk of Maori and Pacific Islanders.

Records will help

Helen Rameka had enjoyed a life free of illness before she began to feel constantly cold, sore, and was unable to sleep on her left or right side. The St Heliers woman was soon told she had developed breast cancer.

"It was harrowing ... I wouldn't wish it on any other woman."

While outcomes for her Pacific Island ethnic group are statistically worse than Europeans, the 56-year-old had the cancerous cells surgically removed and returned to work within weeks.

Six years on, Mrs Rameka, who is of Cook Islands Maori descent, counts each day as a blessing.

And she's happy that her records, alongside those of 10,400 other patients in the Auckland area, will help researchers shed new light on the country's worrying breast cancer rates.

Breast cancer in NZ

3000
New Zealand women and

20
men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year

600
More than 600 Kiwi women die from the disease each year

10,400
patients on Auckland's breast cancer patient register

65.4%
the higher mortality rate from breast cancer in Maori women when compared with

non-Maori
(75% of all breast cancer cases occur in women over 50 years).