Study Finds Persistent Breast Cancer Survival Edge in Asian American Women

Asian American women with breast cancer have long been observed to have better survival outcomes than other racial and ethnic groups in the United States, but the reasons behind that advantage have remained unclear. In this interview, Scarlett Lin Gomez, PhD, MPH, professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and co-leader of the Cancer Control Program at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses new findings from a study published in JAMA Network Open that take one of the most comprehensive looks yet at this question.

Gomez explains that prior research on the topic tended to rely either on large cancer registries with limited detail, or on smaller, less representative samples. Her team set out to build a larger, more comprehensive dataset that could incorporate reproductive and lifestyle factors, along with clinical and neighborhood-level data, to see what might explain the survival gap.

The result, she says, was unexpected: even after adjusting for all of those factors, the survival advantage among Asian American women persisted. Gomez discusses how her team also looked beyond the broad "Asian American" category itself, which spans more than 30 ethnic groups and roughly 100 languages and dialects. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women, whose outcomes differ substantially, were excluded from the analysis to avoid masking that heterogeneity.

Breaking the data down by ethnicity and by nativity—whether patients were born in the US or abroad—revealed further nuance. Gomez highlights one notable pattern: Japanese American women showed a different survival pattern by nativity than other Asian American groups, a difference she connects to the distinct immigration history and settlement patterns of Japanese Americans in the US.

Gomez notes that a definitive explanation for the overall advantage still hasn't emerged, and her team's search continues.

REFERENCE

Gomez SL, Von Behren J, McGuire V, et al. Breast Cancer Survival in Asian American Patients. JAMA Netw Open. 2026 Jul 1;9(7):e2621041. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.21041.