Never heard of male breast cancer? It’s time you did
(Oct. 13, 2008) October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and it’s no surprise to hear about the 1.3 million women affected by this deadly disease each year. But many don’t know that nearly 2,000 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer and approximately 450 men will die of the disease in 2008.
Eileen Thomas, PhD, RN, assistant professor at the UC Denver College of Nursing, and her research assistant Stephen Schoen are conducting a study on men’s knowledge and awareness of male breast cancer. They are recruiting 30 English speaking men between the ages of 30 and 60 who have never been told they have breast cancer and have one or more of the following family members with (or had) breast cancer:
* Mother
* Sister
* Brother
* Aunt (mom’s sister)
* Uncle (mom’s brother)
So far, 20 men have signed up for the program including:
Robert, a Caucasian male who was aware that men could get breast cancer but didn’t know the risk factors. His mother and wife both have breast cancer. He didn’t realize men could have mammograms, a common misconception among men.
William, an African American who learned about male breast cancer through an episode of the TV show Prison Break, where a male prisoner was diagnosed with it.
Ricky, who had two sisters and mother with breast cancer who found a lump. He said he felt ashamed and embarrassed because it’s a “female disease.” He ultimately had a benign cyst.
Approximately 20 percent of men who get breast cancer have a female relative with the disease. Breast cancer is extremely invasive in men because the male breast is much smaller and by the time it’s diagnosed, it usually has invaded other organs and/or the chest wall.
Sadly, many health care providers, male physicians in particular, are not knowledgeable about male breast cancer. This study is a first step to ensuring better and more wide-spread understanding about breast cancer in men. The study still needs 10 more men, preferably Hispanic or Asian.
The preliminary results and abstract will be submitted to the Western Institute of Nursing Research shortly and presented at a research conference in April. The full results will be presented in July.