Women of color needed for breast cancer study

With five months left for recruiting, the study is 11,000 women short of its goal of 50,000 participants.

More troubling to researchers is that only 12 percent of the 39,000 women recruited so far are minorities.

"We really want the study to be representative of the women in the United States," said Lisa DeRoo, an epidemiologist for the Sister Study. "We do know that the incidence of the disease and survival rates vary from group to group. ... Part of the reason why it's so important to recruit a diverse group of women is that we want the results to benefit the different women across the United States."