Let's Focus on the Woman, Not the Easy Solution

John Hopkins Medicine

Personally, I find it insane that we have yet to find a better solution to breast cancer than mastectomy. Why do we need to rely on completely tearing away a part of a woman's body in order to solve the issue of their breast cancer? Certainly there must be a way that is much better for the woman psychologically and emotionally.

We have placed too much faith in the solution of a mastectomy as being a quick way to get rid of breast cancer without recognizing the hurt and pain women go through when they have to deal with this procedure. These women have lived with and learned to love their breasts and to be faced with the idea that they have turned traitor against their own body by having breast cancer is very painful. Since this appears to be the one solution for women who go through breast cancer, they either risk death or have to lose a body part. If we put more research and time into finding additional solutions to breast cancer we might find a solution that is much more preferrable among women. Having additional choices in how to handle their breast cancer may make these women's lives a little more positive.

About 1 in 8 US women will develop breast cancer over the course of her lifetime. In 2018, an estimated 266,120 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in women in the US. Early diagnosal has not made too much of a difference as the estimated amount of women to die from breast cancer in 2018 is 40,920 compared to the 40,290 in 2015. Granted, this wasn't a huge increase in expected deaths from breast cancer, but we should be working on decreasing deaths rather than letting them remain stagnant and continuing.

SRG Tech

A big part of organizations who raise awareness for breast cancer is the push for early detection leading to early diagnosal. The idea behind this is that if women are regularly going in for check ups, screenings, and doing their own self-examinations, that is the best defense against breast cancer. Where this hurts women is that it puts the responsibility and pressure the women to recognize when they have breast cancer and deal with it accordingly. The issue resulting from this responsibilty is that women may not always have the means or resources to get help or know when they have signs of breast cancer. Getting regular check ups and screenings can't always happen if a woman does not have access to health insurance. Recognizing what the signs of breast cancer look like may not be possible either if women do not have access to information on what breast cancer looks like. 

Along with pushing responsibility onto women, early detection lets doctors rely on methods to deal with breast cancer after it has developed rather than coming up with additional methods that would work to prevent breast cancer from ever developing. This then pushes women to accept one method in order to save their lives through a mastectomy. One such individual who was initially only given the option of a mastectomy was Desiree Basila. Desiree had been diagnosed with stage 0 breast cancer. The first surgeon she met showed her a photograph of her right breast and told her there was a slot open the following week for a mastectomy. Desiree
knew she was not ready to have one or both of her breasts cut off, so after talking to another doctor she decided to take a drug called tamoxifen which blocks estrogen and was in a clinical trial with active surveillance. As long as the tumor did not continue to advance, Desiree would not have to go through a mastectomy.

Granted, Desiree's story and her diagnosis was only stage 0 and not one of the more severe forms, if she was able to avoid mastectomy why can't we put more research into breast cancer and find other solutions that do not involve the complete removal of the breasts or to the point where a woman does not have to face death.

I understand that a lot of research and time has been put into breast cancer and I acknowledge that my knowledge of breast cancer and is very limited. I am not fully aware of the all the efforts that have taken place to find a better treatment for women, if there are any.

I hope we can think more broadly about how to treat this cancer rather than just removing the site where it develops - the breasts.

Reading:
Lorde, A. (2006). The cancer journals. Aunt Lute Books.