Dr Lisa Newman, of Weill Cornell Medicine, has been part of an international project studying breast cancer in women in different regions of Africa for 20 years.
Her work has shown that [triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)] is particularly common in women from countries in western sub-Saharan Africa, such as Ghana.
She says the reason might be that the genetics of women from this area have been shaped over generations by battling deadly infectious diseases such as malaria.
“Studying triple negative breast cancer in women with different ancestral backgrounds, we are learning that some of the genetic markers which were related to developing resistance to different infectious agents have downstream effects on the inflammatory landscape of different organs, such as the breast,” Dr Newman says.
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The NHS Race and Health Observatory is also calling for black women to come forward to be part of research.
Dr Georgette Oni, a Nottingham-based breast surgeon, says the lack of representation on clinical trials is an issue in the UK too.
“One of the things that I harp on a lot about is getting black people into clinical trials because that’s how they record the data,” she says.
