CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — New research found the most common form of breast cancer presents differing metabolic signatures in the blood of African American women with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer compared with non-Hispanic white women. The scientists also identified a protein – negative elongation factor complex E – that was linked with higher mortality rates among African American women with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer. 

The findings, published online by Nature Scientific Reports, may help explain some of the molecular processes driving higher rates of the disease – especially more aggressive forms of it – in African American women. ER-positive breast cancer accounts for about 70%-80% of all breast cancer cases, and African American women are 40% more likely to die from it than white women, said Zeynep Madak-Erdogan, a professor of nutritional sciences and of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and co-author of the paper.

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