Breast cancer is more common when you are older. But it also happens to young women. When it does, it’s more complicated and affects them differently.
On the WebMD webinar “Diagnosed Before 40: Unique Impacts of Breast Cancer in Younger Women; It’s more complicated”, Ann H. Partridge, MD, MPH, spoke about treatment and lifestyle challenges.
“When young women are diagnosed with breast cancer, on average, they are more likely to hear about breast cancer again,” said Partridge, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a professor at the University of California School of Medicine. harvard.
“Unfortunately, not most, but on average, they are more likely to die from it than their older counterparts. But the good news is that most women will be long-term survivors.”
That tendency for young women with breast cancer to abandon their treatment plans was most surprising to 66% of surveyed webinar viewers. Their lower quality of life and higher risk of death were more surprising to 17%.
Another survey asked about treatment-related menopausal symptoms in young female breast cancer survivors. More than 25% were interested in yoga, mindfulness, and acupuncture.
“Are new treatments being investigated to prevent the recurrence of hormone-positive breast cancer?”
“Do I have other options if I don’t want to complete the full 5 years of endocrine therapy because of side effects?”
“Do you recommend any natural therapy?”
A lot of research is being done as this is unfortunately one of the leading causes of cancer related death in women. The vast majority of women will have hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. Many experts around the world are working hard to get more information to help them.
Recently, researchers have been looking at breast cancer that might be resistant to endocrine therapies. In the last 10 years, new drugs have come onto the market that have more than doubled the time women live with advanced breast cancer. Very recently, experts have seen that these drugs also improve the risk of recurrence in people with ER-positive breast cancer.
Data on these new treatments continue to show promise in improving the risk of recurrence. Younger women are more likely to have positive nodes or higher risk diseases. This makes them excellent candidates for new drugs that show better results.
For endocrine therapy, it’s a good idea to have a discussion with your doctor if you can’t tolerate the therapy. If you’re on ovarian suppression with an aromatase inhibitor (which is effective for young, premenopausal people), it may be better to go for ovarian suppression and tamoxifen or tamoxifen alone rather than go all out altogether.
One year of tamoxifen reduces your risk of recurrence by approximately 10%, 2 years of tamoxifen reduces your risk by approximately 30%, and 5 years reduces your risk by approximately 50%. Because of this, it’s important to get as close to 5 years as possible. Your doctor can help you feel comfortable during treatment and help you with any symptoms. This may involve taking short breaks in treatment.
Ultimately, your treatment decision will depend on your specific risk.
In terms of natural therapies, things like diet (high in nutrients, fruits and vegetables) and exercise are important parts of an overall care plan.
But be careful with natural medicines. “I’m a little concerned because not a lot of things have been tested to see if they interact with drugs that we know are helpful for breast cancer,” Partridge said. “You also have to be careful not to accidentally adjust your hormones with any kind of natural product.”
While it is important to be careful with edible or intravenous natural treatments, you can try natural therapies such as reiki, mindfulnessexercise, and acupuncture.
“Does race play a role in breast cancer risk before age 40?”
Do men get breast cancer before the age of 40?
Race plays a role in breast cancer. For women under the age of 40, research shows that black young women are at higher risk than white young women. When young black women have breast cancer, they are more likely to have triple negative breast cancer.
Experts continue to investigate this because triple negative breast cancer has a higher risk of recurrence. And because this is more common among black youth, it will create disparities.
Men rarely develop breast cancer, especially those under the age of 40. Experts see about 2,000 cases per year in the US in contrast to about 250,000 women.
Men under the age of 40 may get this disease, but most of them are over the age of 70.
Are the symptoms of breast cancer different for people under 40?
For someone under the age of 40 diagnosed with breast cancer, who should be on their care team?
The symptoms of breast cancer in young and old people are not different.
The big difference is that older women are generally screened. Unless you are at high risk, most young women are not being screened. This means that many younger people may not find out that they have breast cancer unless they actually notice a change in their body.
No matter what stage of life you are in, a care team is important. It is ideal to have an oncologist, surgeon and radiation oncologist. Others may include pathologists, radiologists, and nurses who give you chemotherapy.
Genetic counselors are also important because they can help you determine what kind of genetic markers you might have that are linked to cancer.
The other big component of your care team is a social worker or mental health provider. We try to make sure that all of our young patients know that we have that kind of support for them. And then of course the other important parts of the team are your friends and family.
Watch the online replay of the webinar “Diagnosed Before 40: Unique Impacts of Breast Cancer in Younger Women; It’s more complicated”.
Look other free webinars from WebMD to learn from leading experts on a variety of medical conditions and topics.
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