UF's College of Medicine received a five-year, $5.3 million grant Wednesday to fund a center to prevent and improve care for head and neck cancers in minorities.
The grant was given by the National Institutes of Health.
Henrietta Logan, a UF dentistry professor who will head the new center, said it is one of five similar centers opened nationwide by the institute.
However, she said, UF's location will be the only one specializing in head and neck cancers. The other four are focused on oral diseases.
She said head and neck cancers have the highest death rate of oral diseases.
"Our goal is to take the bite out of head and neck cancer," Logan said.
The new project will keep its headquarters in an existing building at the College of Medicine and will involve faculty from the College of Health and Human Performance, the College of Medicine and the College of Dentistry.
The discrepancy comes from many areas, Logan said, including lack of patient knowledge and lacking access to high-quality medical care.
Head and neck cancers are the 10th leading cause of death among black men, according to a UF news release, and their mortality is twice the rate of white men with the same diseases.
Most black men will only survive 21 months after diagnosis, compared with about 40 months for white men, the release stated.
Logan said research from the dentistry college shows that blacks often do not receive the optimal treatment.
The hardest part, she said, is that the disease is diagnosed too late. When that happens, it's either fatal or the treatment - usually surgery or radiation - is disfiguring.
