October - Breast Health Awareness Month - Week 3

In the breast cancer world, every culture can … unfortunately … feel “special.”

·         Caucasian women have the highest incidence rate for breast cancer.

·         Compared to all other women in the U.S., Asian American women are the least likely to have ever had a mammogram.

·         Hispanic women get more aggressive breast cancers than non-Hispanic white women.

·         African American women are more likely to die of breast cancer than women in any other racial or ethnic group.

Facts like these are why there’s a national breast cancer awareness month. Usually, though, true awareness comes when someone we know puts a “face on the disease.” Sometimes those faces are even famous. This summer the world paid close attention when actress Angelina Jolie revealed she had chosen to have a preventive double mastectomy.  She chose this option after learning she carried the BRCA1 gene and had an 87% risk of breast cancer and a 50% risk of ovarian cancer. With the surgery, she wrote in the New York Times, her risk for breast cancer is now 5%.

The National Cancer Institute points out that women with mutations in the genes BRCA1 or BRCA2 are five times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer, but they also note that less than 1 percent of women actually have a BRCA mutation.

So that’s one face and one form of cancer. But many types of breast cancer exist. They can be non-invasive or invasive; located in the ducts or lobules. And risk factors vary with each type and within cultures.

With all this “awareness” a woman can easily be overwhelmed. However, the one thing we can assure every woman that we see – and at The Rose we are closing in on the 400,000 mark after 27 years of operation – is that they know their body best. The key is to set a baseline – know what your “normal” looks like and then pay attention when there’s a change. Here is a helpful guide for what those changes might be:

·         Lump, hard knot or thickening inside the breast or underarm area

·         Swelling, warmth, redness or darkening of the breast

·         Change in the size or shape of the breast

·         Dimpling or puckering of the skin

·         Itchy, scaly sore or rash on the nipple

·         Pulling in of your nipple or other parts of the breast

·         Nipple discharge that starts suddenly

·         New pain in one spot that does not go away

When 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer, chances are you didn’t need Ms. Jolie’s announcement to put a face to the disease. But too many women do need someone like her to encourage them to take action. Allow me. Please, schedule your mammogram today.   

Dorothy Gibbons, Co-Founder and CEO of The Rose