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- In the United States in 2021,
it's estimated that 281,000 women will be diagnosed
with invasive breast cancer
and almost 50,000 with non-invasive or in situ disease
that translates to about one in eight women
and one in 833 men.
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So the truth is we don't know what causes breast cancer.
What I tell my patients is that one cell made a mistake
and that mistake got replicated.
And for some reason, in that specific instance,
the immune system didn't take care of that abnormal cell
and it let it grow and perpetuate.
As much as people want to think
there's one specific cause of breast cancer
or that it's only related to family history,
that's not really the case.
And people get breast cancer for all different reasons,
and it's many different diseases.
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The American Cancer Society
and the American College of Radiology
and the American Society of Clinical Oncology
all believe that women should begin
screening for breast cancer
by mammograms at age 40 and yearly.
There are some organizations
that say that breast cancer screening
should start at age 50 or should be every two years,
but from a medical oncology perspective,
we feel firm about age 40 and yearly.
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So it's a myth that breast cancer can entirely be prevented.
There are things that we can do
to reduce our risk for breast cancer like avoiding smoking,
decreasing alcohol intake, and losing weight.
But even the healthiest patients
are sometimes diagnosed with cancer.
So it's hard to say that breast cancer can be prevented
because in some instances,
chance is what leads to cancer diagnoses.
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Treatment options for breast cancer
depend on the specific type of breast cancer
that a woman is, or a man is diagnosed with.
What I tell my patients is that breast cancer
is more like 30 different diseases
than it is one or even three diseases.
Standard treatments for breast cancer include surgery,
radiation, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy,
and now even immunotherapy or targeted therapy.
And a combination of those therapies
may be used in any single patient,
depending on what the extent of the disease
and what type of disease they present with.
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To prepare for breast cancer treatment,
I tell my patients to focused on rest, maybe exercising,
working on their emotional state,
and getting their support system intact
so that when they do start cancer treatment,
however long that may or may not be,
that they have everything in place
and can just focus on their health.
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Certain types of treatment for breast cancer
can affect fertility like chemotherapy and hormonal therapy.
So what I do is try to identify patients
who desire future fertility upfront
and refer them to our oncofertility specialists
so that they can discuss those needs
and prepare in many different ways,
including sometimes egg retrieval, IVF,
there's fertility preservation for men even now.
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I do believe that men and women
experienced breast cancer differently.
Unfortunately, I think there still may be some stigma
in society about men having breast cancer as a diagnosis.
And so therefore, many men keep their diagnosis
kind of under wraps and don't communicate it as freely
with their family and their loved ones.
I really encourage my male patients to share their diagnosis
with their friends and family
so they can get the adequate support that they need,
just like any women diagnosed would,
and communicate with people
so that they can learn more about the disease.
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Supporting friends and family
that are diagnosed with breast cancer is really important.
And really small gestures can go a long way.
So I try to tell friends that things like asking a patient
if they need a ride to their appointments,
going with them to their doctor,
asking if they can cook a meal
and maybe make a meal train.
Those things like that,
support patients in really grand ways
that even larger gestures really don't,
and they mean the world to my patient population.
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