Study suggests link between keloids and high risk of breast cancer among African Americans

Results from a new study by researchers at the Henry Ford Health System suggest a link between keloids and increased risk of bad cancer, especially among African Americans. Keloids are benign fibro-proliferative tumors that can lead to excessive growth of scar-like tissue on the skin. Keloids would affect about 11 million people worldwide. Despite this prevalence, the exact cause of keloid formation is unknown.

The multidisciplinary research team hypothesized that African-American women with a history of keloids would reflect a population of bad cancer patients with aggressive tumors and poor outcomes. The medical file review of 13,033 patients wearing a scar code in the electronic health record of the Henry Ford Health System between 2005 and 2015 was performed.

Of these patients, 255 also had a diagnosis of concomitant bad cancer. Of this group of 255 patients diagnosed with bad cancer, 102 had a confirmed history of keloids and 152 had no keloids. Using this cohort of patients, the researchers conducted a multivariate badysis to identify badociations between bad cancer-related clinical factors and keloid status.

The researchers found a race-specific age badociation, with African-American patients showing a significantly younger age for bad cancer diagnosis in keloid-positive patients, aged 52 years on average, compared to to negative patients, aged 58 years on average. In addition, keloid patients had a higher percentage of advanced bad cancers (11.7% vs. 4.8%). The group hypothesizes that ethnic variations in the tumor's immune response may explain their unique cancer risk.

"It is well established that keloids and some aggressive bad cancers such as triple negative and inflammatory types disproportionately affect African American women," said Lamont R Jones, MD, MBA, vice president of the department of 39, otorhinolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery in Henry Ford Health System and Principal Investigator of this Study. "We need to better understand how the immune system-specific differences in African Americans lead to more aggressive types of cancer.While the results of this study are preliminary, we think that a more in-depth study of the possible link between bad cancer and keloids could provide more information. " . "