Breast Cancer Awareness - Not Just A Woman's Disease

The American Cancer Society reports that for men's chances of getting breast cancer is about one in 1,000. On Oct. 15, 2009, Lowell resident Sam Hill became that man. Sam Hill had felt a lump in his breast for probably three or four months assuming it was fatty material from a lumpectomy that he ad previously. Unfortunately it turned out to be stage two breast cancer, really close to being stage three. Hill's lump was surgically removed from his breast and he opted to have a mastectomy which was followed by five chemotherapy sessions.

Raymond Johnson is a 26-year-old construction worker from Charleston, South Carolina, that was not covered under his insurance plan because he was not female. Johnson noticed he had a lump in his breast but thought it must be a cyst so he ignored it as well. He said the pain had got so bad over July 4 weekend that he went to a Charleston emergency room. At first doctors thought the pain was his heart but when he showed them the lump, they sent him for a biopsy and that was when they found he had breast cancer.

According to breastcancer.org, about one in eight women in the United States will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime, however breast cancer clearly is not just a disease that affects women. Even though it is a rare occurrence, breast cancer does strike men which is evidenced by Hill's and Johnson's case. The American Cancer Society reports that about 1,970 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed among men in this year alone. It is also expected that 395 of those men will die from breast cancer. Just like with women, breast cancer in the male breasts are uncontrolled growth of damaged tissue cells. Men who have been diagnosed with breast cancer are few and far between, less than 1% of all cases, but many men are still affected by the disease. It's not difficult to find a man who has had a wife, mother or sister who has been diagnosed since it is 100 times more common in women. Even though men do get breast cancer, pink is still the color of choice to bring awareness to it. October is when the whole world celebrates and participates in raising money for research, advocates self breast exams, and urges not just women, but men to participate in the cause. All lumps and abnormalities in the breast should be check out by a doctor whether male or female.