How common, really, is breast cancer?

[momofkhm]

We just found out this week that our pastor's wife has breast cancer. That makes 5 women at our church, 4 in the last 3 years. And it's a small church. I'd say definitely less than 150 members. Probably less than 100.

 

I can find statistics of 90 per 100,000. That seems to say we have a abnormally high number of women with it.

[chiguirre]

If they're related, they might carry a BRAC mutation which makes breast cancer almost inevitable. That would certainly skew your numbers. There are just statistical anomalies that occur sometimes too, so that a small group will have a disproportionately high number of cases.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

According to my oncologist, 1 in 8 women get breast cancer.

[Danestress]

No. The 90 out of 100,000 figure is inaccurate. More like 10,000 out of 100,000 would be diagnosed over the course of their lives.

[fairfarmhand]

 

 

I once took a psychology of women course (something like that). So all the students in there were women. A lot shared stories of their mothers and grandmothers. I was floored by how many said their mom or grandma had cancer and had hormone therapy. So they blamed the hormones. My mother took hormones and she got ovarian cancer. That link has supposedly not been found, but I am skeptical and won't use any hormone therapy. I cringe when I hear people recommend it. My mother's cancer doctor even offered it to my mother when she was in remission. She said, well what about breast cancer? He said, oh well no big deal, we can just cut off your breasts. Ugh..yes he said that. Stupid. But anyhow yes it is known that hormone therapies are linked with breast cancer. And I can imagine in a smaller town many of the women are seeing the same doctor and he/she is prescribing the same things.

 

WHAT!!!

 

I'd be tempted to say, "What about testicular cancer? Oh, well, we can just cut those off too!"

[J-rap]

One out of eight is what I have heard, too. I think often in a small town you just hear things more... It's not that the statistics are higher, but you happen to know the people personally so you hear about it.

 

A side note: I would never go on hormone therapy, and I stay away from much soy and other products that have added hormones, such as chicken and milk (the hormone-free kind is fine).

[Penguin]

U.S. Breast Cancer Statistics Breastcancer.org

 

Breast Cancer Risk in American Women National Cancer Institute (NIH)

 

Keep in mind that the oft-quoted "1 in 8" statistic is over the course of a lifetime. Rates increase with age. See #2 of the NCI document if you want to see rates for a specific age.

[Serenade]

Doesn't it seem as if more people are getting breast cancer than in the past? Growing up in the 60s/70s, I hardly new any women (neighbors, friends) who had breast cancer. Now it seems that there are soooo many women with breast cancer. Is it earlier detection? Or the foods we eat? Or was it undiagnosed before?

 

My mom is a 20 year breast cancer survivor. The doctors said hers was definitely due to hormone therapy.

[prairiewindmomma]

Things like that seem to come in waves...the year my dd got brain cancer was the same year my best friend got breast cancer. There were two other women who had breast cancer as well.... We are coming up on five years since her diagnosis, and no one else at church has been diagnosed with cancer since then.

[Pawz4me]

Doesn't it seem as if more people are getting breast cancer than in the past? Growing up in the 60s/70s, I hardly new any women (neighbors, friends) who had breast cancer. Now it seems that there are soooo many women with breast cancer. Is it earlier detection? Or the foods we eat? Or was it undiagnosed before?

 

I think one reason it seems more common now is that it's much more openly discussed. When I was growing up in the same time frame, breast cancer (or any other kind of "female" cancer) was something that was whispered about amongst other women. Not talked about openly and in mixed company, let alone all over the media. Pat Nixon's diagnosis began to change that.

[momofkhm]

Yeah, the 100 people are both men and women. Not just women. 1 in 8. I couldn't find it on-line any where. I'll have to look around on Sunday and see if that bears out.

 

Thanks!

[redsquirrel]

Doesn't it seem as if more people are getting breast cancer than in the past? Growing up in the 60s/70s, I hardly new any women (neighbors, friends) who had breast cancer. Now it seems that there are soooo many women with breast cancer. Is it earlier detection? Or the foods we eat? Or was it undiagnosed before?

 

My mom is a 20 year breast cancer survivor. The doctors said hers was definitely due to hormone therapy.

 

I think people talk about it now. My mom said that when her mom (my grandmother) was dying of breast cancer in 1967, no one would even say the word cancer, much less the word breast. My grandmother, who was a nurse, didn't seek help for a long time because it was a problem with her breast. She didn't want to discuss it, talk about it, have to be examined etc. My mom was pretty sure her own father never said the word breast to her when discussing his own wife, her mother. He just couldn't say that word.

 

My own mother, who has had two bouts of breast cancer, has always been very open with us about such things. She was so sad, watching her mother battle an illness that made her ashamed.

 

Another thing to consider, are the women in your church roughly the same age? I know that in our church, the vast majority of members are over 60. That means that I hear about lots of cancers and other related illnesses.

 

On the topic, I strongly recommend the book "The Emperor of All Maladies: a Biography of Cancer" It was an amazing book on the topic of cancer, cancer treatment and science.

 

ETA; I also think it is getting diagnosed earlier. For example, my mom has had to deal with two separate breast cancers. Both were ductile cancers found the the earliest stages. Neither required chemo. Both were treated with a lumpectomy. The second time, treatment protocol had changed and she also had radiation treatment for 6 weeks. Both of those were very slow growing cancers. The are often referred to as 'good cancers' because they are slow going, easy to find and treatable. My SIL had a 'bad cancer' it was pre-menopausal breast cancer, fast growing, and impossible to treat. She died in her 40s.

 

But, the point is that my mom could have lived for years with the cancer she had and never known.