In late 2013, a mother of a friend was dealing with breast cancer while my mom was battling her second round of chemotherapy which had not worked and instead the cancer had metastasized.

Much has been said about defective BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes recently and the greater risk of breast cancer that runs in some families, but the focus on women fails once again to acknowledge that men too can suffer from this disease.

As part of our commitment to the Passionate Pursuit of Prevention campaign being undertaken by Healthy Hispanic Living and its partners, ThinkNow Research has been asking a nationally representative group of Latinas about issues related to breast cancer.  

According to the American Cancer Society, breast cancer will claim 40,000 lives this year. In the Hispanic/Latino community, breast cancer rates are relatively lower than those found in the Caucasian community, as data from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center cites that Latinas are one-third less likely to have breast cancer than non-Hispanic white women.

BCRF investigator Dawn Hershman, MD, MS of Columbia University Medical Center and BCRF Grantee looks for differences in recurrence scores between Hispanic and non-Hispanic white women with the most common type of the disease.