Page 11 - Christiana Care Focus February 2019

Community volunteers share
The Story of BRENDA
“with and for Love”
| Cancer Care
For reasons that researchers do not yet understand, Delaware women — especially African-American Delaware women — are among those at highest risk for an aggressive form of breast cancer known as triple negative breast cancer.
The Story of BRENDA aims to empower more than 1,500 women in Delaware with the knowledge to prevent triple negative breast cancer or find it at its earliest, most treatable stage.
There is currently no effective hormone therapy to prevent the spread or return of the fast- growing, triple negative breast
cancer. It affects 33 percent of black women diagnosed with breast cancer treated at Christiana Care’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute, compared with 12 percent of Caucasian women. Across the state, the incidence of triple negative breast cancer is higher than anywhere else in the nation. According to the National Cancer Institute, about 21 women out of 100,000 are diagnosed with the cancer, up from the U.S. average of 15.5 per 100,000 women.
It’s time to bring those numbers down,
says a group of about 30 volunteer ambassadors who will soon head to ZIP codes throughout the City of Wilmington
to lead free educational sessions on triple negative breast cancer and its impact on the African-American community.
The volunteers — some inspired by a friend or loved one’s breast cancer journey, and others who are cancer survivors themselves — will share The Story of BRENDA with their sisters in faith, profession and community.
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FOCUS • FEBRUARY 2019 9