Blacks in Medical News

Low prevalence of HPV infection may be tied to poor prognosis for blacks with head and neck cancer

Researchers at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer have found that head and neck cancer patients who test positive for the human papillomavirus (HPV) have much better survival rates than patients who don't have the virus, according to a new study in the journal Cancer...

Cancer Gap Between Whites, Blacks May Be Biological in Part

Disparity remains when treatment, socioeconomic factors are the same, study finds TUESDAY, July 7 (HealthDay News) -- Even when they get identical medical treatment, black Americans with breast, ovarian and prostate cancer tend to die earlier than patients of other races, a finding tha...

Doctor-Patient Talks Key to Blacks Getting Cancer Screens

Poor communication a major problem in low screening rates but one that can be fixed, study suggests MONDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) -- Poor doctor-patient communication and not having a regular primary-care doctor may be major reasons for low colorectal cancer screening rates among b...

Networking May Aid Blacks Who Need Kidney Transplant

Survey finds that active role by patients doubled their odds of success FRIDAY, March 27 (HealthDay News) -- Social and medical networking can improve the chances that blacks who have kidney failure will acquire a new kidney, a survey has found. "Research overwhelmingly indicates ...

Study quantifies racial disparities in cancer mortality rates between blacks and whites

African Americans have a shorter life expectancy than whites, and cancer plays a major role in this disparity. African Americans are more prone to get cancer; they tend to present at a later, deadlier stage; and they have poorer survival rates after diagnosis. But to what extent are each of ...

High Rate of Early Heart Failure Seen in Blacks

Biggest risk factors were hypertension, obesity, study found WEDNESDAY, March 18 (HealthDay News) -- Blacks tend to develop heart failure 20 years earlier than whites, a long-running study shows. "What we found is that [early] heart failure occurs almost exclusively among blacks, an...

Church-Based Weight Plan Peels Off Pounds for Blacks

Members dropped 5% of body weight and sustained it for 6 months, study finds TUESDAY, March 10 (HealthDay News) -- A 12-week church-based weight loss program helped many overweight/obese blacks lose 5 percent or more of their body weight, and most of them maintained their weight loss f...

New study finds blacks still lag in obtaining total knee replacements for arthritis

ATLANTA, Feb. 19, 2009 A new study released today found blacks remain less likely than whites to undergo total knee replacement, an important intervention for reducing pain and improving physical function among those with disabling knee osteoarthritis. The study also found total knee replacements...

White patients benefit more than blacks in surviving surgical complications at teaching hospitals

Elderly patients who undergo surgery at teaching-intensive hospitals have better survival rates than at nonteaching hospitals, but these better survival rates apparently occur in white patients, not black patients. "We found an advantage in surgical outcomes for patients in teaching-intensive ...

White Patients Benefit More Than Blacks in Surviving Surgical Complications at Teaching Hospitals

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Elderly patients who undergo surgery at teaching-intensive hospitals have better survival rates than at nonteaching hospitals, but these better survival rates apparently occur in white patients, not black patients. "We found an advantag...

Kidney Disease in Blacks Undetected Until Late Stages

Awareness needs to improve among doctors, study suggests FRIDAY, Jan. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Kidney disease in black Americans often goes undetected until the latest stages, according to new research. In a study that included more than 3,400 black Americans who were interviewed and ...

Education Program Spurs Blacks to Take Blood Pressure Meds

Studies had found blacks twice as likely to skip medicines, compared to whites WEDNESDAY, Nov. 12 (HealthDay News) -- A patient education program that included encouragement and occasional gifts improved medication adherence -- taking medicines consistently and correctly -- among black...

High-Risk Blacks Less Likely to Get Colonoscopies

Those with family history are referred less often than whites, study finds TUESDAY, March 25 (HealthDay News) -- Even when there is a family history of colon cancer, blacks are much less likely to get colonoscopies than their white counterparts are, a new study finds. While blacks w...

Cultural Beliefs May Keep Blacks From Hospice Care

Mistrust of medical system helps explain why many shun these services, survey finds TUESDAY, Feb. 5 (HealthDay News) -- End-of-life hospice care is used much less often by American blacks than whites, and certain cultural beliefs may explain why, a new survey finds. An historical mi...

Poorer Blood Pressure Control in Blacks With Heart Failure

Doctors need to do more to erase racial disparities, study suggests SUNDAY, Nov. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Rates of high blood pressure among heart failure patients vary widely by race and gender, a new U.S. study finds. A team at the Medical University of South Carolina, Mt. Pleasant, noted that...

Prostate cancer more likely to return in blacks than whites, but the disease is not more aggressive

DURHAM, N.C. -- African-American men are more likely to have their prostate cancer return after treatment, but their disease is no more aggressive when it does recur than that of their white counterparts, according to a study led by Duke Prostate Center researchers. Our study found that African...

Do Blacks Have Genetic Weakness to Asthma?

Study suggestion questioned by experts SUNDAY, Sept. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Black Americans who have asthma are much more likely to visit emergency rooms or be hospitalized for the condition than their white counterparts. That's the finding of a new study that reaches the controvers...

Older blacks and Latinos still lag whites in controlling diabetes

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Despite decades of advances in diabetes care, African Americans and Latinos are still far less likely than whites to have their blood sugar under control, even with the help of medications, a new nationally representative study finds. That puts them at a much higher risk of bli...

Depression May Lead to More Preemies Among Blacks

Expert thinks pre-pregnancy mood could partly explain disparity in birth rate ,,,, TUESDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- Black women are twice as likely to give birth prematurely as white women, and a greater likelihood of depression may play a role in that, a new study suggests. Res...

Gene Mutation Doubles Risk of Aggressive Colon Cancer in Blacks

Study found whites much less likely to have this variant WEDNESDAY, April 1 (HealthDay News) -- A genetic mutation may explain why blacks are more likely than whites to have a more aggressive form of colorectal cancer, U.S. researchers report. "Several studies have identified a disp...

Increase in P53 mutation linked to advanced colorectal cancer in blacks

PHILADELPHIA Researchers have identified a possible genetic cause for increased risk for a more advanced form of colorectal cancer in blacks that leads to shorter survival, according to data published in Clinical Cancer Research , a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Un...

Teaching Hospitals' Post-Op Gains Not Extended to Blacks

Whites seem to benefit more from improved expertise after surgery, but reasons unclear, study finds MONDAY, Feb. 16 (HealthDay News) -- White patients are less likely to die of post-surgery complications at teaching hospitals than at non-teaching hospitals, but that benefit doesn't app...

Blood pressure control inequality linked to deaths among blacks

Racial disparity in the control of hypertension contributes to the deaths of almost 8,000 black men and women in the United States annually, according to a first-of-its-kind study published today in the Annals of Family Medicine by University of Rochester Medical Center researchers. The resea...

Negative Cancer Messages Backfire With Blacks

Positive approaches more likely to prompt minorities to get checked for disease, study says THURSDAY, Nov. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Cancer-screening messages targeted to minorities that take a negative approach -- emphasizing, for instance, that colon cancer is a bigger threat to blacks t...

Glaucoma May Boost Cardiovascular Death Risk in Blacks

Inappropriate treatment with beta blockers, other meds also increases odds, study finds TUESDAY, March 11 (HealthDay News) -- Black people diagnosed and treated for glaucoma and those with high pressure in their eyes may be at increased risk for cardiovascular death, a new study sugge...

Brain Disease Causes More Vision Loss in Blacks

Intracranial hypertension left patients almost 5 times more likely to become legally blind MONDAY, March 10 (HealthDay News) -- Black Americans are more likely than other racial groups to lose their vision due to idiopathic intracranial hypertension, or increased pressure in the brain,...

Whites take supplemental breast cancer therapy more often than blacks

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---A new study finds that white women more frequently take more of the life-prolonging supplemental therapies used to treat breast cancer than African-American women. African-Americans whose cancer had spread to the lymph nodes were less likely to have adjuvant cancer therapy ...

Study Evaluates the Incompetence of Blacks as Living Kidney Donors

In one of the first studies of its kind, researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine explored why blacks are less likely than other races to become living kidney donors, and the reasons are obesity and failure to complete the donor evaluation. "Obesity is a growing problem i...

Hospitals in Older Cities Close Down, Blacks Worst Affected

Riverview is a community hospita l in Detroit with 285 beds, specializing in general medical and surgical services, such as treatment of congestive heart failure, diabetes and obstetrics. Detroit is the largest city in the state of Michigan in US Midwest, supposedly a prosperous region. ...

Home Remedies More Used By Blacks And Native Americans

Researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine have found out that an inclination to use home remedies for treatment of common diseases are based more on ethnic background rather than accessibility to health care.// Blacks and Native Americans tend to opt for home remedies when compared...

Fewer Blacks Undergo Lung Cancer Surgery

Black men get lesser care in the case of lung cancer when compared to whites, according to a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s research findings // .This is in spite of the fact that lung cancer is more frequently found among black males. The disease accounts for the highest number of cancer deaths. T...

Hurricane Katrina Still Wrecking Lives - More So With Blacks

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans are still struggling with financial hardship and health problems, and blacks seem to be having the lions share of this. Accordingly, more than half of the 1,504 people surveyed by the foundation aft...

Genes May Trigger Repeated Premature Birth In Blacks

Black women may be genetically predisposed to giving birth prematurely, according to a new study from Washington University//. The research is an important first step toward identifying women at risk for delivering babies too early and eventually could lead to treatments. Researchers at th...

US Experts Necessitated On An Action Plan To Curb AIDS In Blacks

Nowadays AIDS in America is being called as 'Black Disease' as commented by Phill Wilson, executive director of the black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles. //It is because of the growing AIDS population among the blacks, accounting to more than 55% of the total AIDS cases across the country. African-A...

Bladder Cancer Has Worse Outcomes In Blacks

A new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center finds that blacks with bladder cancer have the worst prognosis and are 35 percent more likely to doe than whites.// The study involved 93,093 people with bladder cancer and found that blacks with advanced cancer had aggressive ...

Malfunction Of Key Growth Factor Increases Mortality Rate From Pulmonary Fibrosis In Blacks

The mortality rate from pulmonary fibrosis in African-Americans is almost twice as high as that found in the Caucasians//. For many years now, researchers have been searching for an explanation for this difference. Now physiologist from Belarus says that she has found why this racial difference exi...

AADE, Emory University and Johnson & Johnson Diabetes Institute Partner to Educate and Improve Access to Care for Atlanta-area Minorities with Diabetes

...llion, or 9.8% of all non-Hispanic whites aged 20 years or older, have diabetes. Non-Hispanic blacks: 3.7 million, or 14.7% of all non-Hispanic blacks aged 20 years or older, have diabetes. Moreover, health disparities are increasing in the U.S. Individuals in African American and Hisp...

Living in U.S. May Raise Hispanics' Cancer Risk

...e places of origin and compared them with cancer rates for those groups in Florida. Overall, Hispanics still had lower cancer rates than whites and blacks in Florida, but the researchers found that Cubans and Puerto Ricans quickly acquired higher risk for diet-related cancers. Cuban men had more tobacco-...

Antidepressant Use in U.S. Has Almost Doubled

... medications by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2004, the study authors noted. Lower rates of increases in antidepressant use were seen in blacks (3.61 percent in 1996 versus 4.51 percent in 2005) and in Hispanics (3.72 percent versus 5.21 percent in 2005), the researchers found. Still, about...

Virus May Affect Survival in Head and Neck Cancer

...ck Americans, who have far less HPV infection than whites, have poorer head and neck cancer survival rates. "There is currently no consensus on why blacks fare worse with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck than whites, but this is the first clue that it may be biologic rather than related to is...