Black women from Soweto diagnosed with breast cancer at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital are invited to participate in the study immediately after their diagnosis and before any treatment has begun. To better understand why these women developed breast cancer, other women who have not developed the disease are invited to participate in the study as controls. The women invited to be controls in the study live in the same neighbourhood as the case and are approximately the same age (± 3 years).
This study has been approved by the IARC Ethics Committee and the Wits Human Research Ethics Committee (Medical).