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MONDAY, July 6, 2020 (HealthDay News)<\/p>\n
Early-stage breast cancer<\/a> is more likely to be diagnosed in U.S. states that have expanded Medicaid coverage under Obamacare<\/a> than in those that haven’t, researchers say.<\/p>\n Their new study looked at a database of more than 71,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer<\/a> in 31 states that expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act<\/a> and 14 states that did not.<\/p>\n In the expansion states, the average rate of uninsured breast cancer<\/a> patients fell from 23% to 14%, and the rate of women diagnosed with advanced breast cancer<\/a> fell from 23% to 20%.<\/p>\n No significant changes occurred in states that didn’t expand Medicaid.<\/p>\n “If the cancer<\/a> is diagnosed early, generally treatment is definitive and women have good overall survival,” said study first author Dr. Justin Le Blanc, a surgical resident at the Yale Cancer<\/a> Center and Smilow Cancer<\/a> Hospital in New Haven, Conn.<\/p>\n “It’s important to get women health care access early. And when patients have access to health care, they’re more likely to utilize it,” he said in a Yale news release.<\/p>\n Differences were especially notable among black women in expansion states, with the percentage of those diagnosed with advanced breast cancer<\/a> falling from 25% to 21%.<\/p>\n Advanced cancer<\/a> diagnoses among younger women in expansion states fell from 23% to 21%, but stayed at 26% in non-expansion states.<\/p>\n That reduction of advanced cancer<\/a> in expansion states is important because breast cancer<\/a> is much rarer and more aggressive in younger patients, according to the authors of the study published July 1 in the journal JAMA Surgery<\/i>.<\/p>\n Breast cancer<\/a> is the most common cancer among U.S. women, with an estimated 279,100 diagnoses and 42,170 deaths this year.<\/p>\n The researchers said the next step in this research is to compare the medical services provided to Medicaid-insured breast cancer patients with services received by patients with other insurance or none.<\/p>\n “For example, are these women with Medicaid now receiving increased use of chemotherapy<\/a>, radiation therapy<\/a>, reconstructive surgery, or genetic testing?” Le Blanc said.<\/p>\n Study co-author Dr. Tristen Park is an assistant professor of surgery at Yale. She said most women with breast cancer live a long time if it’s caught early and treated correctly.<\/p>\n “The next step is that we should also try to give them a good quality of life,” Park said in the release.<\/p>\n — Robert Preidt<\/p>\n ![\"MedicalNews\"](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/HealthDay\/healthday.png\")
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