Invasive breast cancer rates are rising faster among Asian American women than any other ethnic group in the United States. A University of California, San Francisco study, first published in JAMA Network Open, says the trend is particularly pronounced in women under 50 and those diagnosed with advanced disease or certain aggressive forms of breast cancer. Among Chinese American women, cases of triple-negative breast cancer — an aggressive subtype — increased by more than 6% per year between 2017 and 2022. “These patterns are highly concerning from a disparities standpoint,” says senior author Scarlett Lin Gomez, PhD, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF and co-leader of the Cancer Control Program at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. “They underscore why it is so important to move beyond treating Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders as a single population.”
