Improving breast cancer outcomes aim of free Q&A with experts.
Women from Māori, Pasifika and Indigenous Australian communities have lower screening rates for breast cancer, higher mortality and are under-represented in clinical trials compared to the wider population, a leading oncology research group says.
Findings from a new report - 30,000 Voices: Informing a Better Future for Breast Cancer in New Zealand - found that Pasifika women are 52 per cent more likely and Wàhine Māori are 33 per cent more likely to die of breast cancer within 10 years of diagnosis, compared with Pàkehà (European ancestry) women.
Breast Cancer Trials, Australia and New Zealand’s largest oncology research group is hosting a free Q&A on breast cancer at the Auckland Museum on July 26 from 5.30 - 7 pm focused on discussing breast cancer in Indigenous communities. It will feature Australian and New Zealand breast cancer experts and breast cancer survivors and will be moderated by television and radio broadcaster, Stacey Morrison.
The expert panel includes Associate Professor Andrew Redfern, Dr Rob McNeill, Dr Reena Ramsaroop and breast cancer survivors, Maria Marama, Ali Coomber and Andrea Casey.
Watch the The Impact of Breast Cancer Trials video here:
People can either register to attend the in-person event or to watch the live stream online. In both cases, it is free to attend and participants are able to pose a question to the expert panel.
The 30,000 Voices report, which was produced by The Breast Cancer Foundation National Register and the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ, shows that wàhine Māori are also more likely to have higher-risk HER2-positive breast cancer (this tends to grow faster, spread and recur) than European women.
Pasifika women have the highest rates of life-threatening stage 3 and 4 breast cancer and of HER2-positive cancers, and more fast-growing grade 3 tumours than all other ethnicities.
But breast cancer affects all ethnic groups in New Zealand and is the most commonly diagnosed cancer for women. Every year 3000 new cases are diagnosed and more than 600 deaths occur, figures from the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ show.
A research paper expert panellist Ramsaroop contributed to - ‘Ethnic disparities in breast cancer survival in New Zealand: which factors contribute?’ - showed that there are differences between Māori and Pacific and non-Māori, non-Pacific women groups in terms of residential area, mode of presentation, disease factors, comorbidity index, treatment factors and cancer care facility type.
These differences explained approximately 75 per cent and 99 per cent respectively of the survival disparities between Māori and Pacific and non-Māori, non-Pacific women.
The most important contributor was the late stage at diagnosis while other contributing factors included neighbourhood deprivation, mode of presentation, treatment facility type and type of loco-regional therapy (loco regional recurrence is when the cancer comes back in the place where it started or in nearby lymph nodes). Tumour grade also contributed to the survival differential in Pacific women.
The findings underscored the need for a greater focus on equity in breast cancer care, with an emphasis on improving access to early diagnosis for Māori and Pacific women.
In Australia, although Aboriginal women are 0.9 times as likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer, they are 1.2 times more likely to die from breast cancer than the wider population.
The five-year survival for Aboriginal women with breast cancer is also lower at 81 per cent compared to the general population of 92 per cent. Breast screening rates for Aboriginal women are also lower compared to non-Indigenous Australians, at 37.3 per cent compared to 53.2 per cent.
During the Q&A event, the panel will be examining the issues facing women in these communities, the challenges of recruiting culturally and linguistically diverse patients to clinical trials, access to breast cancer screening, the collection of patient data to better inform policy and how outcomes for women in these communities may be improved.
For more information about breast cancer in Māori, Pasifika and Indigenous communities:
- 30,000 Voices: Informing a Better Future for Breast Cancer in New Zealand – this report was produced by the Breast Cancer Foundation National Register and the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ
- Ministry of Health NZ
- Cancer Australia – Our Mob and Cancer
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
- Ethnic Disparities in Breast Cancer Survival in New Zealand: Which Factors Contribute?
To register for the event in person or online, please go to:
- To attend the in-person event at Auckland Museum - Rego: breast-cancer-trials-qa.eventbrite.com.au
- To watch the live online broadcast - rego: breastcancertrials.org.au