Neighborhood Deprivation and Breast Cancer Mortality Among Black and White Women.

Importance: Neighborhood deprivation has been associated with increased breast cancer mortality among White women, but findings are inconsistent among Black women, who experience different neighborhood contexts. Accounting for interactions among neighborhood deprivation, race, and other neighborhood characteristics may enhance understanding of the association.

Objective: To investigate whether neighborhood deprivation is associated with breast cancer mortality among Black and White women and whether interactions with rurality, residential mobility, and racial composition, which are markers of access, social cohesion, and segregation, respectively, modify the association.

Historical Redlining, Persistent Mortgage Discrimination, and Race in Breast Cancer Outcomes.

Importance: Inequities created by historical and contemporary mortgage discriminatory policies have implications for health disparities. The role of persistent mortgage discrimination (PMD) in breast cancer (BC) outcomes has not been studied.

Objective: To estimate the race-specific association of historical redlining (HRL) with the development of BC subtypes and late-stage disease and a novel measure of PMD in BC mortality.

Redlining-associated methylation in breast tumors: the impact of contemporary structural racism on the tumor epigenome.

Purpose: Place-based measures of structural racism have been associated with breast cancer mortality, which may be driven, in part, by epigenetic perturbations. We examined the association between contemporary redlining, a measure of structural racism at the neighborhood level, and DNA methylation in breast tumor tissue.

Methods: We identified 80 Black and White women diagnosed and treated for a first-primary breast cancer at Emory University Hospitals (2008-2017).

Drivers of racial, regional, and socioeconomic disparities in late-stage breast cancer mortality.

Background: The authors identified tumor, treatment, and patient characteristics that may contribute to differences in breast cancer (BC) mortality by race, rurality, and area-level socioeconomic status (SES) among women diagnosed with stage IIIB-IV BC in Georgia.

Methods: Using the Georgia Cancer Registry, 3084 patients with stage IIIB-IV primary BC (2013-2017) were identified. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to calculate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) comparing mortality among non-Hispanic Black (NHB) versus non-Hispanic White (NHW), residents of rural versus urban neighborhoods, and residents of low- versus high-SES neighborhoods by tumor, treatment, and patient characteristics.

Time to Surgical Treatment and Facility Characteristics as Potential Drivers of Racial Disparities in Breast Cancer Mortality.

Background: Black women are more likely to die of breast cancer than White women. This study evaluated the contribution of time to primary surgical management and surgical facility characteristics to racial disparities in breast cancer mortality among both Black and White women.

Methods: The study identified 2224 Black and 3787 White women with a diagnosis with stages I to III breast cancer (2010-2014).

Understanding gastrointestinal cancer mortality disparities in a racially and geographically diverse population.

Background: Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers represent a diverse group of diseases. We assessed differences in geographic and racial disparities in cancer-specific mortality across subtypes, overall and by patient characteristics, in a geographically and racially diverse US population.

Methods: Clinical, sociodemographic, and treatment characteristics for patients diagnosed during 2009-2014 with colorectal cancer (CRC), pancreatic cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), or gastric cancer in Georgia were obtained from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program database.

Let's talk about race: changing the conversations around race in academia.

Jasmine Miller-Kleinhenz et al. highlight the risk of science and academia’s general neutrality to discussions around race and social justice. Their collectively-developed course represents a framework to begin these important discussions and improve conversations on race in academia.

Racial Disparities in Diagnostic Delay Among Women With Breast Cancer.

Purpose: Early diagnosis is fundamental to reducing breast cancer (BC) mortality, and understanding potential barriers from initial screening to confirmed diagnosis is essential. The aim of this study was to evaluate patient characteristics that contribute to delay in diagnosis of screen-detected cancers and the contribution of delay to tumor characteristics and BC mortality.

Methods: Three hundred sixty-two White and 368 Black women were identified who were screened and received subsequent BC diagnoses within Emory Healthcare, a part of Emory University health care system (2010-2014).

Neighborhood-Level Redlining and Lending Bias Are Associated with Breast Cancer Mortality in a Large and Diverse Metropolitan Area.

Background: Structural inequities have important implications for the health of marginalized groups. Neighborhood-level redlining and lending bias represent state-sponsored systems of segregation, potential drivers of adverse health outcomes. We sought to estimate the effect of redlining and lending bias on breast cancer mortality and explore differences by race.

Targeted nanoparticles for image-guided treatment of triple-negative breast cancer: clinical significance and technological advances.

Effective treatment of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) with its aggressive tumor biology, highly heterogeneous tumor cells, and poor prognosis requires an integrated therapeutic approach that addresses critical issues in cancer therapy. Multifunctional nanoparticles with the abilities of targeted drug delivery and noninvasive imaging for monitoring drug delivery and responses to therapy, such as theranostic nanoparticles, hold great promise toward the development of novel therapeutic approaches for the treatment of TNBC using a single therapeutic platform. The biological and pathological characteristics of TNBC provide insight into several potential molecular targets for current and future nanoparticle-based therapeutics.