October is awash in seas of pink T-shirts, balloons and ribbons in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But this messaging fails to recognize people who are not cured of the disease.
Many women with metastatic breast cancer feel left out of annual ‘Pinktober’ awareness drives because these campaigns tend to focus on earlier, more curable stages of the disease.
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A diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer means having cancer for the rest of one’s life – a situation with very different needs and concerns compared to earlier stages of the disease.
Women with DCIS or stage 0 breast cancer have the same chance of dying from breast cancer as the rest of the population – 3.3%.
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We’re told that finding symptoms of disease early will prevent the more serious consequences. But for pre-cancerous lesions, also known as stage 0 breast cancer, the picture is much more complicated.
For 10% of patients the disease will return.
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Over 13,500 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia each year. After completing initial treatment, the immediate question for many, if not most, is - what are the chances my cancer will return…
Professor of Breast Cancer Research, Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation and School of Biomedical Sciences,, Queensland University of Technology