Breast Cancer Disparities in Filipino-American Women: A Literature Review

Written by Astrid D. Oviedo

doi: https://doi.org/10.13178/jnparr. 2020.10.02.1004

Abstract

Background: Aggregation of different ethnicities into one race for data analysis, the salmon effect, and the misclassiication of ethnicities are three methodological problems that hide cancer disparities in an ethnic group. Studies on Filipino-American (FA) women as a disaggregated group need to be examined to highlight cancer disparities in this ethnic group.

Objective: The objective of this study was to review the recent literature on breast cancer disparities in FA women.

Methods: This literature review yielded 16 articles from PubMed and CINAHL and four articles from the reference list of the database searches. This literature review synthesized these 20 articles highlighting the breast cancer disparities in FA women.

Results: The state of the science reveals that FA women are diagnosed at a younger age and later stages. FA women experience cancer disparities with delays in follow-up diagnostics and suboptimal care. FA women also experience unfavorable tumor characteristics, such as higher tumor grade, negative hormone receptor status, and overexpression of the Her2neu gene marker.

Conclusion: Research shows that FA women experience breast cancer disparities in terms of age at diagnosis, worse tumor characteristics, and suboptimal breast cancer care. Increasing mammogram adherence in FA women is one way to mediate the effects of these breast cancer disparities. However, mammogram adherence in this ethnic group has been historically low. Further research needs to be done to investigate the facilitators and barriers to mammogram adherence in FA women.

Keywords: breast cancer, cancer disparities, Filipino