‘A national emergency’: Black women still 40% more likely to die of breast cancer than white women

by Nada Hassanein, Oct 31, 2022

Lathesia McClenney first noticed a lump in her breast at age 29.

A resident of Wilcox County, Alabama — a rural, majority-Black community southwest of Montgomery — she’d driven 35 miles north to Selma to see a specialist.

After examining her, a doctor said she was too young for concern, despite her great aunt and cousins having breast cancer. He sent her home with a vitamin regimen, she said.

Two months later at a follow-up appointment, clinicians finally performed the necessary biopsy. McClenney had cancer: ductal carcinoma.

Then last year at 45, the social worker grappled with a second diagnosis, this time with triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive type that’s harder to treat.