When a woman experiences bleeding after menopause — an early warning sign of endometrial cancer — doctors usually order a transvaginal ultrasound. But if that medical scan is unclear, guidelines say the next step is simple: follow up with a biopsy.
Yet a new study led by experts from the Duke Cancer Institute’s Gynecologic Cancer Program reveals that doesn’t always happen, especially for Black women, and the reason may be familiar.
Researchers at Duke, Mount Sinai Hospital and Columbia University examined the records of more than 6,400 women with postmenopausal bleeding. They found that nearly one in four non-Hispanic Black women who had abnormal or inconclusive ultrasound results did not receive a timely biopsy to check for cancer. Click here to read about the PUMBA study.