Page 13 - Christiana Care Focus February 2019

for this aggressive kind of cancer. Yet only about two percent of DNA samples available for genetic studies are from black women.
“If we can encourage more women with African DNA to participate in genetic counseling and testing, we hope to come up with better tools to help them survive,” Dr. Dickson-Witmer said.
Do it for someone else
Gemma Lowery, eICU operations coordinator for Christiana Care, is one of the volunteers eager to share The Story of BRENDA with her community. Lowery was adopted.
She has no knowledge of her own family medical history and few clues about her own risk for triple negative breast cancer so she is diligent about prevention and screening. She watched her stepmother, who is of Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jewish ancestry, face four cancer diagnoses. Along with African-Americans, Ashkenazi Jews are also at increased risk for triple negative breast cancer.
Her adoptive mom also suffered scares with dense breast biopsies. Though the three women do not share a bloodline, their bond motivates Lowery to do all in her power to help drive down Delaware’s triple negative breast cancer rate for the benefit of all women.
She also does it for her three sons, who may someday pass down her genes to future
Lgenerations.
owery is particularly passionate about encouraging people of color to participate in genetic testing. She understands the history-based
cultural fear that remains from the infamous and unethical Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male and Henrietta Lacks, the African-American woman whose cells were pivotal in 1950s medical research without her informed consent. But Lowery believes genetics hold the key to saving more people from triple negative breast cancer.
“I just don’t think that fear is any longer a reason to die,” she said. “We need to understand that genetic testing gives us the power to do something to help someone else, and we need to be part of the gene pool to find the missing answers,” she said.
BRENDA volunteer Dorian Corey-Williams, a triple negative breast cancer survivor, agrees.
“If we can save the ones coming behind us, let’s do it!” she said.
“We’re doing it — with and for Love.”
Sarah Harrison, MBA, also a founding member of the Community Research Advisory Board, lost her mother at a relatively young age to breast cancer decades ago, long before researchers had identified more than one type of the disease. This spurred Harrison’s lifelong passion to better educate her five sisters and others in the community to practice prevention measures, get screened early for cancer and become
more knowledgeable about the importance of participating in genetics and cancer research.
Harrison, who is a Christiana Care Trustee
and also chairs the physical and mental health committee of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Wilmington alumnae chapter, said she has seen more willingness in recent years across all age groups for people to step up and share what they have learned to help others.
“We have seen so much improvement and we simply cannot stop,” she said. “The more we work together collectively, the greater our reach will be.”
Nora Katurakes, MSN, RN, OCN, manager of Community Health Outreach & Education at the Graham Cancer Center, said events like the BRENDA presentations empower women and encourage families to embrace the opportunity to talk about clinical trials and genetics at the time of diagnosis. Key to the program’s success, she said, are the amazing women who have committed to share the message with all who will listen.
“Love Congo really wanted the impact of this important outreach to continue,” Katurakes shared with those attending the first training session for BRENDA volunteers. 
BECAUSE  OF THIS COMMUNITY OUTREACH
| Cancer Care
To schedule a free presentation of The Story of BRENDA for your community group, contact Christiana Care’s Community Health Outreach Department at the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute at 302-623-4661.
For more information about genetic counseling and testing, contact Christiana Care’s Genetic Risk Assessment Program at 302-623-4593.
FOCUS • FEBRUARY 2019 11
1,500
women will be educated by dedicated volunteers about ways they can prevent triple negative breast cancer or detect it early when it is most treatable.