Dr. Ngozi Ezike (Photo Courtesy of Sinai Chicago).
A recent American Cancer Society-led report shed light on the progress cancer research and treatment have made, allowing people to not only survive the condition but thrive with it as well.
Released at the end of May, the Cancer Treatment and Survivorship Statistics report indicated that in 10 years, the number of people living with cancer will grow by more than 22 million, a shift in narrative over a condition where, at one time, a diagnosis meant the end.
“That actually is the most hopeful testimony to anybody who is scared of that infamous C word,” said Dr. Ngozi Ezike, president and CEO of Sinai Chicago. “It means that cancer does not equate to death. It means you can have cancer, survive cancer and go on to live a full, productive life.
However, the main outcome of that report, the news over increased rates of survivorship, shows that the improved outcomes are not equally distributed, that in cities like Chicago, cancer survival can depend on one’s zip code.
A predominant narrative that remains unchanged is this: Black men and women are still being diagnosed at later stages and, as a result, are more likely to die from treatable cancers.
Dr. Ezike, former Illinois Department of Public Health director, is fighting to help close those racial gaps in survivorship. Even as treatments improve and early detection saves more lives, the benefits aren’t reaching Black and Brown communities equally—especially on Chicago’s West and South sides.
In a recent conversation, Dr. Ezike spoke with The Chicago Defender about the hopeful rise in survivors, what still holds us back and why federal funding cuts could undo decades of progress.
Tacuma Roeback: With more people expected to live with cancer over the next 10 years, what does that say about where we are in terms of the research and treatment overall?
Dr. Ngozi Ezike: It’s all good news. If you go back 50 years, the five-year overall survival rate for all cancers was less than half. So, people who had cancer, if you check them five years later, more than half of them weren’t alive five years later.
But now, if you think of all the people that have cancer and follow them out five years, the majority of them are alive—70% are still alive. So, it just really tells you how far we’ve come with advancements, and those are improving every day. I think it’s just an important message, and we have to make sure that the people in our community understand that.
Because for too many people, they might have a sense that something is wrong and say, ‘I don’t want to get tested. I don’t even want to know.’ But it’s like, ‘No, you do want to know because the earlier you know, the earlier we can get at it, and the higher the chance of survivability and going on to thrive.
At Sinai, that is exactly our mission and goal: to not just provide the care but to make sure that you know you have that access to care. We always have to highlight that the most important thing is prevention, as opposed to treating. And so trying to do all the things we can do and educate our community on the pieces that will help lower our risk of cancer is very important. Those are the things that we all know about, about trying to eat healthy, limit alcohol, regular physical activity, get adequate sleep. Those health recommendations actually improve long-term health outcomes and decrease rates of cancer.
Roeback: So I wanted to get into breast cancer specifically because, according to the report, breast cancer survivor numbers are also expected to grow. However, there’s also an increase of over one million women from 2025, marking the largest projected growth among the top 10 most prevalent cancers. We know that Black women are disproportionately impacted by breast cancer, especially in terms of survival rates. Can you talk a bit about that issue and the opportunity that exists to address that gap?
Dr. Ezike: We do know that breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer for women. The stats are about one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. So, that’s a lot. Everybody has either themselves, a mother, sister, aunt—somebody who has been touched with breast cancer. But that’s not where the story ends. Yes, a lot of people are going to be diagnosed with breast cancer, but the story is that a lot, most people will survive it.
Unfortunately, as the treatments for breast cancer just get better and better, we still see some of these disparities in terms of the outcomes for different ethnic groups. And as you highlighted, Black women don’t have the same outcomes as their white female counterparts. That is an ongoing fight to eliminate the factors that result in those disparities.
We know that there is bias. As we try to, from medical school, be able to identify that this is an ongoing issue, unconscious bias, racial bias, making sure that there are standardized protocols for people so that race is taken out of the equation when you might be dealing with unconscious or other types of bias. But it also involves making sure that there’s access for all people.
So, being able to have places like Sinai that serve a majority-minority population, the populations that don’t have the best outcomes. It is very important that those populations have a place to go get care. Tied to that lower survival rate is the fact that Black women’s cancers are detected later, and so we’ve got to get our community members in on time. We have to make sure that everyone is educated and well-versed in the importance of screening.
We have to make sure that we put in those extra supports, like having extended hours so people can’t say, ‘Oh, I couldn’t get there because I didn’t want to miss work.’ We have to help with transportation to help get people there. We have to help with reminders. All these different pieces will help get our people to their test, to their appointments so that they can achieve the great successes that other ethnic groups are facing. So we have work to do. We have to root out some of these racial disparities by educating providers, by providing services, by providing access, increasing access, and providing those specific supports to get people where they need to be.
Photo Credit: Jose carlos Cerdeno, Getty Images Signature
Roeback: And that applies not only to breast cancer but prostate cancer as well, right? I would also say colorectal cancer as well in terms of Black and Brown communities.
Dr. Ezike: Between breast cancer, prostate cancer and colon cancer, those are the biggest cancers that there are. They’re the most common cancers. And knowing that Black men have that to a large degree, we have to tell the same story about early detection.
The truth is that prostate cancer is not a cancer that people have to die from. A lot of times, it’s usually a slow-growing cancer. If you find it on time, you can get treatments that can cure you of that where that’s not the reason that you have to die. So again, the same message that we have to get out to our community for mostly women who get breast cancer, that same message has to go out for prostate cancer.
We just have to make sure our community is well educated so that they can make the best choices for their health and, therefore, the health of the community.
Roeback: I want to get to an uncomfortable reality that many people are facing. There’s a lot of talk about Medicaid and cancer prevention programs being cut. What impact do you see the cuts having in terms of these improved survival rates and the programs around detection and treatment?
Dr. Ezike: It’s a very important question to be thinking about: What would be the result? What would be the downstream effects of losing dollars to Medicaid? There is no good result in losing dollars to Medicaid. I think in Illinois alone, 3.5 million people benefit from Medicaid. I think understanding that any cut to Medicaid means either more people who don’t have insurance, and we know that when people don’t have insurance, they are thinking about the financial costs of getting a screening test. They might say, ‘Well, I feel fine. Why do I have to spend that money?’ So, when you don’t have insurance, that definitely leads to delayed diagnoses of cancers because you didn’t do the routine screening. Any cut in Medicaid would lead to a decreased amount of services that are covered. That means you have systems that are thinking about what is not covered now with Medicaid.
It could steal some of the advances we have in terms of the high survivability and the greater number of survivors. It’s almost like turning the clock backward if you now take away insurance for so many people. For Sinai, specifically, 70% of our population is on Medicaid. Not having access for whatever portion of those people would be very detrimental.
It would cause people not to seek the care they need, the preventive care that can help prevent cancer, the screening care that can help detect it early, the actual treatment to make sure that we save those lives with treatments that exist. Why would we want to have these treatments and not be able to give them to people, and not give it to people because they happen to be lower income and therefore can’t get the treatment? That will widen the disparities that you were just asking about when we’re so actively trying to close those gaps.
Roeback: Getting back to that study, what came out last week about our survivorship rates going up? What does that look like in Illinois specifically?
Dr. Ezike: We have the same rising numbers. We are definitely seeing more people survive and thrive after cancer. But again, we want those numbers of increase in survivors to be distributed all across the city of Chicago, right? We want it on the West Side and the South Sides, and not just in the more affluent areas. That’s why I feel like what Sinai Chicago does: we’re trying to meet people in these communities to be able to make sure that we have as many people surviving and thriving after cancer. That this survival from the advancement of all these great treatments, that it touches everybody in the city of Chicago, and not just the privileged few.
Roeback: I would imagine that’s the microcosm of what’s going on nationally as well.
Dr. Ezike: Exactly.