Women Cancer Health Treatment

Sisters share all kinds of things: clothes, makeup, family recipes. Unfortunately, sometimes they also share a disease. According to the American Cancer Society, sisters of breast cancer patients are twice as likely to develop it as well. Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences are trying to find out why, and they need the help of Latinas.

Women whose sister have breast cancer are being asked to join the Sister Study, a national study focusing on identifying factors that influence the development of this type of cancer.
By studying sisters, who share the same genes and often similar experiences and environments, researchers are hoping to have a better chances of learning what cause the disease.

“Most of what we know about breast cancer risk comes from studies of mostly white women,” says Lourdes Suarez, recruitment coordinator for the study. Yet this is the most common type of cancer among Hispanic women, according to the ACS. The study includes women of all races, but in order to reach out to Hispanics, it is now conducted in Spanish.
“We want to find out what is going on in the women health environment and what Hispanic women might be eating. What is it about their lifestyle, if anything,” Suarez says.

Study participant Yolanda Gomez-Robles and her five sisters joined in hopes of helping researchers understand possible environmental cause of cancer after watching their sister Olivia Hernandez battle the disease for two years before overcoming it.
As part of a Mexican-American migrant family, Gomez-Robles remembers picking grapes, onions and other crops as a child while crop dusters flew overheat and Olivia crawled around the edges of the fields. Fifty years later, she wonders what effect, if any, the chemicals they were exposed to as children might have had on the family.

“I’m concerned that there were environmental factors to Olivia’s problem and I’m concerned about how it could affect the rest of us,” she says. “I want to be a part of contributing to the study that can lead to cure of prevention.”
She encourages other Latinas to participate. Of the more than 23,000 women now enrolled in the study, only hundreds are Hispanic.
“I grew up in a generation where women were discouraged from speaking up,” Gomez-Robles says. “May fear is that Hispanic cultures that might still be there and women may not be able or willing to speak up and find answers.”

Latinas between the ages of 35 and 74 are eligible for the study if their sister had breast cancer but they have never had it themselves. Participants do not have to travel or take any medications for the study. They are asked to answer questions about their lifestyle, such as places where they’ve lived or worked.
Volunteers must also provide a sample of their blood, urine and household dust, which researchers collect. After that the participants are contacted yearly for updates on their health or environment.
“We are not going to find out tomorrow what causes this, but as we study and follow [this] for 10 years, we hope to have some answers at the end of that period,” Suarez says.

Source : Hispanic Magazine