New data shows that breast cancer rates may be lower in U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands compared to the 50 states. However, the data also shows that women in the region are more likely to receive late-stage diagnoses.
Researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at breast cancer rates in the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia.
Dr. Lee Buenconsejo-Lum, an associate dean at the UH John A. Burns School of Medicine, led the study. She said more late-stage diagnoses may be the result of fewer cancer screenings.
"Mammography is not widely accessible to almost every population. Even in Guam with the highest percentage of people saying that they had received recent breast cancer screening, that is maybe 65% compared to the U.S. standard, which is above 80%," she said.
"But in some jurisdictions, there actually are no mammography. And so if a patient doesn't have access to screening or has such tremendous barriers to receiving care, the case may never get reported."
Buenconsejo-Lum said, for example, the Federated States of Micronesia has only one mammography machine in the country — at a private hospital on the island of Pohnpei.
She said care access challenges come from being in small communities with low worker availability and being economically under-resourced.
"In some of the jurisdictions, there's no oncologist even. There's no radiologist. If the mammography is done, they have to have it read by teleradiology someplace else in another part of the world. So it's both, it's the small population, but it's because that population, or the system in that population, may not be able to support that type of full service," Buenconsejo-Lum added.
But she said the colleagues she's been working with for over 20 years have made tremendous strides.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Aug. 1, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
