October is filled with fall colors, Halloween costumes and pink ribbons as students attend events about breast cancer awareness. Sigma Gamma Rho sorority held an event Tuesday pertaining to breast cancer awareness for women of color.

“What I really wanted to highlight is that the highest fatal breast cancer rate is African American women,” said Amber Abogunrin, secretary of Sigma Gamma Rho.

At the event women could not only learn about prevention and early detection from an advanced practice registered nurse Mary Raman, but also ask her questions.

Raman began her lecture off with a brief definition of breast cancer, defined as abnormal cells formed and invading breast tissue.

“It’s more and more diagnoses among women and especially hits African Americans more for a variety of reasons,” Raman said.

Raman also mentioned factors like age or family history that play into someone being diagnosed with breast cancer at any given point in their life. While Raman mentioned how finding cancer in younger women is harder, a woman with a history of cancer in her family may be at a higher risk.

“It depends on your family history,” Raman said. “If your mother, sister or daughter have it your chances of inheriting it is actually higher.”

Mammograms are more effective on older women if their breasts are not as dense as younger women. That being said, women between the ages of 20 to 25 are at a low risk. Other risks like gaining weight, drinking alcohol and physical activity were classified as low risk by Raman. Diet is also a conversation topic as to why it should be listed as a risk.

“There isn’t enough to study, to make me feel that the intake of meat products or dairy could cause breast cancer,” Raman said.

African American women often times are diagnosed with more aggressive forms of breast cancer. Raman discussed the top three methods, surgery being the first. If surgery does not work entirely, chemotherapy or medication would be other methods to consider. These also depend on both the type of breast cancer and the stage of the cancer.

Raman also distributed brochures with instructions on how to give a self breast examination, and demonstrated how women are supposed do a self examination.

“When I can feel it, it can feel like a marble was stuck in there, but it can be denser,” Raman said.

For African American women, risk factors could include late diagnosis and delayed treatment, which can result in a mortality rate that is higher than that of white women.

“This is so important to me because white women get breast cancer more than black women, but black women have a higher rate of dying than white women,” said Brittany Pernell, president of Sigma Gamma Rho.