(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Black women with advanced forms of breast cancer may not be getting the same kind of state-of-the-art care white women receive.

According to researchers from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX, the survival rate for white women with the most deadly forms of the disease has risen steadily over the past couple of decades. Survival rates for black women have remained about the same.

The research was spurred by a study showing women receiving cutting-edge treatment at M.D. Anderson were surviving longer with advanced forms of the disease. The investigators speculated they'd find the same trend out in the community at large.

They were wrong. An analysis of federal data on breast cancer found the median survival for white women with advanced disease was 20 months in the years between 1988 and 1993, jumping to 22 months between 1994 and 1998 and to 27 months between 1999 and 2003.

The survival rate languished at around 16-17 months for black women throughout the study periods.

The researchers don't believe biological differences between the races are causing the discrepancy. "We do not suspect that these statistics are due to the biology of the disease because we would not expect the biology to change over time," study author Sharon Giordano, M.D., was quoted as saying. "It's more likely due to socio-economic factors."

Researchers say the answer is to focus more attention on public health policies aimed at ensuring black women have the same access to life-prolonging treatments, such as Herceptin and aromatase inhibitors, as whites.