The death rate from cervical cancer in the United States is considerably higher than previously estimated and the disparity in death rates between black women and white women is significantly wider, according to a study published Monday in the journal Cancer. 
 
 The rate at which black American women are dying from the disease is comparable to that of women in many poor developing nations, researchers reported. What makes the findings especially disturbing, said experts not involved in the research, is that when screening guidelines and follow-up monitoring are pursued, cervical cancer is largely preventable. 
 
 “This shows that our disparities are even worse than we feared,” said Dr. Kathleen M. Schmeler, an associate professor of gynecologic oncology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. “We have screenings that are great, but many women in America are not getting them. And now I have even more concerns going forward, with the” — expected — “repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which covers screening, and the closing of family planning clinics, which do much of that screening.” 
 
 The racial disparity had been noted in earlier studies, but it had been thought to have narrowed because cervical cancer death rates for black women were declining. But this study said that the gap was far greater than believed. ||||| (CNN) The risk of dying from cervical cancer might be much higher than experts previously thought, and women are encouraged to continue recommended cancer screenings. 
 
 Black women are dying from cervical cancer at a rate 77% higher than previously thought, and white women are dying at a rate 47% higher, according to a study published in the journal Cancer on Monday. 
 
 The study found that previous estimates of cervical cancer death rates didn't account for women who had their cervixes removed in hysterectomy procedures, which eliminates the risk of developing the cancer. 
 
 "Prior calculations did not account for hysterectomy because the same general method is used across all cancer statistics," said Anne Rositch, assistant professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and lead author of the study. 
 
 That method is to measure cancer's impact across a total population without accounting for factors outside of gender, she said. 
 
 There were about 12,990 new cases of cervical cancer in the United States last year and 4,120 cervical cancer deaths, according to the National Cancer Institute 
 
 'A better understanding of the magnitude' 
 
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 The data were limited to only 12 states in the country, but the researchers noted that the data still provided a nationally representative sample of women. 
 
 Then, the researchers collected data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System on how many women in 2000 to 2012, 20 and older, reported ever having a hysterectomy. They used that data to adjust the cervical cancer deaths rates. 
 
 Before the adjustment, the data showed that the cervical cancer killed about 5.7 out of 100,000 black women and 3.2 per 100,000 white women. After adjusting for hysterectomies, the rate was 10.1 per 100,000 black women and 4.7 per 100,000 white women. 
 
 The data showed that the racial disparity seen in cervical cancer death rates for black and white women was underestimated by 44% when hysterectomies were not taken into account. 
 
 "We can't tell from our study what might be contributing to the differences in cervical cancer mortality by age and race," Rositch said. "Now that we have a better understanding of the magnitude of the problem, we have to understand the reasons underlying the problem." 
 
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 Cervical cancer is highly preventable in the United States because of the availability of screening tests and a vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
 
 "Racial disparity may be explained by lack of access or limited access to cervical cancer screening programs among black women when compared to whites," said Dr. Marcela del Carmen, a gynecologic oncologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, who was not involved in the new study. 
 
 "This gap and disparity need to be addressed with initiatives focusing on better access to prevention or screening programs, better access to HPV vaccination programs and improved access and adherence to standard of care treatment for cervical cancer," she said. 
 
 The new findings add to the current understanding of cervical cancer's impact on different communities, said Dr. John Farley, a practicing gynecologic oncologist and professor at Creighton University School of Medicine at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Arizona. 
 
 "It lets us know that there is substantial work to do to investigate and alleviate the racial minority disparity in cervical cancer in the US," said Farley, who was not involved in the study but co-authored an editorial about the new findings in the journal Cancer on Monday. 
 
 "Those who get cancer, many times, do not have access to screening," he said. 
 
 Even though cervical cancer mortality rates are higher than previously thought, Farley said that he thinks the current screening recommendations for cervical cancer are still adequate. However, he added, more women should have access to screenings and other preventive measures. 
 
 Rositch said, "It may be that some women are not obtaining screening according to our current guidelines, not necessarily that guideline-based care is insufficient." 
 
 How to prevent and screen for cervical cancer 
 
 The American Cancer Society recommends that women begin cervical cancer screenings at age 21 by having a Pap test every three years. Then, beginning at 30, women should have a Pap test combined with a HPV test every five years. However, the recommendations are not universal among all expert groups. 
 
 Symptoms of cervical cancer tend to not appear until the cancer has advanced, which is why screening and HPV vaccinations are urged. 
 
 "We have a vaccine which can eliminate cervical cancer, like polio, that is currently available, and only 40% of girls age 13 to 17 have been vaccinated," said Farley, co-author of the editorial. "This is an epic failure of our health care system in taking care of women in general and minorities specifically." 
 
 Women over 65 might not need to continue screening if they don't have a history of cervical cancer or negative Pap test results, according to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists 
 
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 A study published in the journal JAMA Oncology last week found that among a group of 1,868 men in the United States, about 45% had genital HPV infections and only about 10% had been vaccinated. 
 
 "Male HPV vaccination may have a greater effect on HPV transmission and cancer prevention in men and women than previously estimated," the researchers wrote in that study. ||||| A radiologist compares an image from earlier mammogram technology to a 3-D digital mammogram in Wichita Falls, Tex. (Torin Halsey/Times Record News/AP) 
 
 Breast cancer death rates declined almost 40 percent between 1989 and 2015, averting 322,600 deaths, the American Cancer Society reported Tuesday. 
 
 Breast cancer death rates increased by 0.4 percent per year from 1975 to 1989, according to the study. After that, mortality rates decreased rapidly, for a 39 percent drop overall through 2015. The report, the latest to document a long-term reduction in breast-cancer mortality, attributed the declines to both improvements in treatments and to early detection by mammography. 
 
 Deanna Attai, a breast cancer surgeon at the University of California at Los Angeles who was not involved in the study, said the advances in treatment included much better chemotherapy regimens — developed in the 1980s and refined ever since — that are administered post-surgery to reduce the risk of recurrence. Other improvements have included tamoxifen, an anti-estrogen agent that was approved in the late 1970s; Herceptin, a drug used to treat tumors with a higher-than-normal level of a protein called HER2 and drugs called aromatase inhibitors. 
 
 More recently, more sophisticated targeted treatments are being used to treat cancer that has spread beyond the breast. 
 
 
 
 (American Cancer Society) 
 
 Even with the gains, however, the toll of the disease remains high. Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in U.S. women and the second-leading cause of cancer death after lung cancer. About 252,000 new cases of breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in the United States this year, and more than 40,600 women are expected to die of the disease. A woman in the United States has a 12.4 percent, or 1 in 8, lifetime risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer. 
 
 Between 2006 and 2015, the study found, death rates decreased for all racial and ethnic groups tracked — non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, Asian/Pacific Islanders, Hispanics and American Indians/Alaska Natives. But there were substantial variations in mortality the different groups. 
 
 In 2015, the death rate for black women diagnosed with breast cancer was 39 percent higher than that for white women. While high, that's actually an improvement; the number was 44 percent higher in 2011. The black-white disparity emerged beginning in the 1980s, underscoring that black women have not shared in the screening and treatment advances that have benefited white women. One reason, the report noted, is that black women didn't benefit as much from the development of tamoxifen because they are less likely to have the kind of breast cancer, called estrogen-receptor positive, that is treated with the drug. 
 
 In seven states, the report found, the mortality rates for white women and black women in 2015 were the same. But the cancer group was cautious about interpreting those statistics, saying that in some of those states there might be too few cases to draw conclusions. However, researchers said they were confident the improvements in reducing or eliminating the racial disparity were real in at least three states: Connecticut, Delaware and Massachusetts. 
 
 “This means that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” said Carol DeSantis, director of breast and gynecological cancer surveillance research for the cancer society and the lead author of the study. “Some states are showing that they can close the gap.” 
 
 Still, the remaining black-white disparity “is not acceptable,” said Lee Schwartzberg, a medical oncologist at West Cancer Center in Germantown, Tenn. He said the gap reflects complicated social, economic and biological factors that are not yet fully understood, including insurance and employment status. In addition, black women are twice as likely as white women to develop so-called triple negative breast cancer, which can be harder to treat, the report noted. 
 
 “We have patients who get diagnosed with cancer and have difficulty making their appointments, like radiation every day for four or five weeks” because they can't take off from work, Schwartzberg said. 
 
 The “excess death rate” — the difference between the death rates of black and white women — ranged from 20 percent in Nevada to 66 percent in Louisiana, the study found. 
 
 Eighty-one percent of breast cancers are diagnosed among women ages 50 years and older, the study found, and 89 percent of breast-cancer deaths occur in that age group. The median age at diagnosis for women overall is 62. 
 
 The findings were published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians and its companion consumer publication Breast Cancer Facts & Figures. The reports are published every two years and cover the latest trends in breast cancer rates, deaths, survival and screening, by race and ethnicity. 
 
 Read more: 
 
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 Is pregnancy safe after breast cancer? Here's what the latest data shows. 
 
 Women with advanced breast cancer are surviving longer, study says 
 
 Many high-risk patients with breast cancer aren't getting genetic testing. Here's why.
– Many more American women are dying from cervical cancer than previously thought, with black women in particular dying at rates akin to those in sub-Saharan Africa, the New York Times reports. Although cervical cancer is highly preventable, African-American women are dying at a rate 77% higher that previously estimated, CNN reports. For white women, the rate was 47% higher. "This shows that our disparities are even worse than we feared,” Dr. Kathleen M. Schmeler tells the Times. New research in the journal Cancer excluded from death rates women who had undergone hysterectomies; previous research had included them even though they were not at risk because their cervixes were removed. Last year, there were 12,990 new cases of cervical cancer in the US, and 4,120 deaths, per the National Cancer Institute. The new study re-examined those figures. For black women, the news was shockingly bad, with 10.1 per 100,000 dying of cervical cancer (compared to 4.7 for white women), a rate seen in underdeveloped countries, per the Times. Reasons for the racial disparity included poor access to screenings and the HPV vaccine. Experts said screening options must be expanded for at-risk women, and warned that the gap could widen if the Affordable Care Act is repealed and women's health clinics shuttered. While screenings work well, "many women in America are not getting them," says Schmeler. Symptoms for cervical cancer do not appear until late, which is why the American Cancer Society recommends screenings and a pap test every three years from age 21, and every five years after age 30. (HPV-related cancer is "epidemic.")