Case CCC's Associate Director for Cancer Population Sciences, Jennifer Cullen, PhD, MPH, and Alberto Montero, MD, MBA, member of the Developmental Therapeutics Program, address the social determinants of health and racial disparities in cardiac events in breast cancer in an article published in JNCCN, the official journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
The study explores that, while survival rates for female breast cancer continue to grow, with a relative survival rate of 90.3%, concerns are mounting about the concomitant increase in cardiovascular disease associated with cancer treatments which are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular toxicity leading to increased CVD morbidity and mortality.
Furthermore, racial disparities have been found in both breast cancer and CVD, with Black women having higher primary risk factors for both. Because the individual-level impact of social determinants of health on racial disparities in cardiac events among women with breast cancer remains unknown, the primary objective of the study was to identify and quantify the role of SDOH in racial disparities in major adverse cardiovascular events.