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Uterine Cancer Awareness Month — June 2026

Uterine cancer is the most common gynecologic cancer in the United States. In 2026, an estimated 68,270 women will be diagnosed and approximately 14,450 will lose their lives to this disease.¹ 


June is Uterine Cancer Awareness Month. This issue of Policy Corner is for the women living with this diagnosis, those who have lost someone they love, and the advocates who show up every day pushing for better research, fairer treatment, and outcomes that don’t depend on your zip code or the color of your skin.


Understanding the Disease

Uterine cancer — often called endometrial cancer — begins in the lining of the uterus. The most recognizable warning sign is abnormal vaginal bleeding, particularly bleeding after menopause. That symptom should never be brushed aside or dismissed.

One key difference from cervical cancer: there is currently no routine screening test for uterine cancer in people without symptoms. That makes personal awareness and prompt reporting of anything unusual absolutely critical.


Key risk factors include:

  • Obesity

  • Hormonal imbalances (particularly elevated estrogen levels)

  • Family history or genetic conditions such as Lynch syndrome

  • Use of certain hormone therapies

  • Frequent use of chemical hair straighteners / relaxers (see Policy Update section below)


The Numbers Tell a Harder Story: Racial Disparities


For years, uterine cancer was described as a disease with relatively good survival rates. That framing was never exactly wrong, but it was incomplete. It obscured a painful truth that the data has since made impossible to ignore: those outcomes have never been equally shared.

African-American women in America face this disease differently at every stage starting from who gets diagnosed, to who receives appropriate treatment, to who survives.

African-American women now have the highest incidence rate of uterine cancer in the United States. By 2019, the rate for African-American women (29 per 100,000) surpassed that of White women (27.6 per 100,000).⁷


African-American women are nearly twice as likely to die from uterine cancer — 9 deaths per 100,000 African-American women compared to 4.6 per 100,000 White women.⁶

The 5-year survival rate is 63% for African-American women versus 84% for White women — a gap of 21 percentage points.⁸


A 2025 Columbia University study projects uterine cancer cases will rise by more than 50% among African-American women from 2018 to 2050, compared to roughly 29% among White women.⁵ The gap is widening.


A major 2026 research finding identified that over 70% of the survival gap between African-American and White women is driven by tumor biology — African-American women are significantly more likely to develop aggressive, fast-growing subtypes of uterine cancer.⁶ But that still does not explain everything.


African-American women are also less likely to receive guideline-concordant care, less likely to have minimally invasive surgery, and less likely to receive timely treatment — even after controlling for tumor biology. These are failures of the healthcare system, not of patients.


What’s New: Research & Treatment Advances (2024–2026)


There is a real reason for hope. The past two years have brought more meaningful advances in uterine cancer treatment than almost any comparable period in recent history.

Three Landmark FDA Approvals — Summer 2024


In the summer of 2024, the FDA issued three landmark approvals for advanced endometrial cancer, bringing immunotherapy fully into the standard treatment picture.²

  • June 2024: Durvalumab (Imfinzi) + chemotherapy, approved for mismatch repair deficient (dMMR) tumors

  • June 2024: Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) + chemotherapy, approved regardless of mismatch repair status. This means a broader patient population can benefit³

  • August 2024: Dostarlimab (Jemperli) + chemotherapy, expanded approval also regardless of mismatch repair status


These drugs help the body’s own immune system recognize and fight cancer cells. Clinical trial data showed significantly longer progression-free survival for patients who received immunotherapy alongside chemotherapy.²


Antibody-Drug Conjugates — Precision Chemotherapy

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are showing strong results in clinical trials. Think of them as precision-guided therapy: designed to target cancer cells directly while sparing healthy tissue, reducing some of the harshest side effects of traditional chemotherapy. Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute are leading much of this work.⁴


Liquid Biopsies: A Future Tool for Early Detection

Researchers at Columbia University are developing liquid biopsies (simple blood or fluid tests) that may one day detect uterine cancer before symptoms appear.⁵ This is still early-stage research, but it represents exactly the kind of tool that could transform survival outcomes, especially for communities that remain underserved by the healthcare system.


Policy Update: What’s Happening in Washington (2024–2026)


Slowly, health policy is catching up. Here is what has happened over the past two years, and why it matters for real people.


FY 2026 Federal Defense Funding

Congress finalized FY 2026 defense spending with $1.27 billion for the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) — a significant increase.⁹ Most importantly, endometrial cancer was added as an eligible condition under the Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program (PRCRP) for the first time. That is a concrete, hard-won victory for advocates who spent years pushing for federal research dollars to reach this disease.


Chemical Hair Straighteners: A New Legislative Front

In July 2025, two bipartisan bills (S. 2285 and H.R. 4396) were introduced in Congress directing the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to study the relationship between chemical hair straighteners and uterine cancer, particularly among women of color.¹⁰ This legislation responds directly to NIH research showing that frequent use of chemical hair relaxers may more than double the risk of uterine cancer.¹² This is a health justice issue: chemical hair relaxers have been disproportionately marketed to and used by African-American women for generations.


Advancing Women’s Health Coverage Act

In October 2025, Representatives Cammack and Dingell introduced the bipartisan Advancing Women’s Health Coverage Act, updating the Women’s Health and Cancer Rights Act of 1998 to expand coverage protections for cancer survivors.¹¹ Too many survivors still encounter coverage gaps for reconstructive and ongoing care after treatment ends. This bill aims to close them.



What You Can Do


Awareness only matters when it leads somewhere. Here is what’s worth doing:

  • Know your body. Report any unusual bleeding especially after menopause to your doctor without delay. Don’t wait, and don’t let anyone dismiss you.

  • Talk to your provider about your personal risk factors. Family history, weight, and hormone use are all worth a direct conversation.

  • If you or someone you love uses chemical hair relaxers frequently, ask your provider what that means for your risk and what symptoms to watch for.

  • If you are uninsured in Virginia, contact the Every Woman’s Life program through the Virginia Department of Health to ask about available screenings and resources.

  • Advocate. Contact your Virginia state legislators. Ask them to support uterine cancer research, awareness, and equitable access to care.

No woman should have to fight this alone. That is exactly why this work matters. 


References

1. SEER / National Cancer Institute. https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/corp.html

4. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Endometrial Cancer Advances. https://www.dana-farber.org/newsroom/features/endometrial-cancer-advances

5. Columbia University / Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention (2025). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12221196/

6. Kaiser Permanente Uterine Cancer Disparities Study, April 2026. https://divisionofresearch.kaiserpermanente.org/uterine-cancer-rates-black-women/

9. Society of Gynecologic Oncology. FY2026 Funding. https://www.sgo.org/news/2026-funding-for-health-and-defense-programs/

10. Women’s Congressional Policy Institute. July 2025 Legislative Update. https://www.wcpinst.org/source/weekly-legislative-update-july-21-2025/

13. Virginia Department of Health. Cancer Burden Overview (2025). https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/content/uploads/sites/76/2025/07/VCR-Cancer-Burden-Overview.pdf

14. Rare Cancer News. Virginia Medicaid and Gynecologic Cancer (2025). https://rarecancernews.com/news/medicaid-coverage-can-raise-demand-gynecologic-cancer-treatment/

15. Virginia Commission on Women’s Health. 2025 Annual Report. https://rga.lis.virginia.gov/Published/2026/RD223/PDF


 
 
 

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