Environmental factors impact Black cancer patients

A comprehensive new study published in Nature Communications has revealed a significant link between whole-genome duplications (WGDs) in cancer and the higher mortality rates observed among Black patients in the United States.The research, which analyzed cancer samples from over 1,800 self-reported Black patients, found that tumors from these individuals were significantly more likely to exhibit WGDs—an aggressive genomic alteration—than those from white patients.The study’s findings highlight the critical role of both genetic and environmental factors in driving racial disparities in cancer outcomes.“We observed that cancers from self-reported Black patients had a significantly higher incidence of WGDs across multiple cancer types,” the study authors stated. The increased prevalence of WGDs in Black patients, ranging from 11% to 35% higher depending on the dataset, was most prominent in breast, endometrial, and lung cancers. That genetic alteration, which leads to increased metastasis and disease progression, was also associated with shorter survival times, suggesting a potential mechanism for the well-documented racial disparities in cancer mortality.WGDs are large-scale chromosomal events in which a cell duplicates its entire set of chromosomes. The process creates genomic instability, promoting more aggressive cancer behavior, metastasis, and drug resistance. Tumors with WGDs tend to be harder to treat due to...