If you were to enter the words “breast cancer” in a news search engine this past month, you’d get hammered over the head with headlines.  And since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, that’s not a surprise.

It’s also not a surprise that the overwhelming majority of these headlines have been about breast cancer among women, especially when you consider that breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women, save for non-melanoma skin cancer.

But before the month of October closes, it’s important to remember that breast cancer is not a women’s only disease.  True, men are at a much lower risk for breast cancer compared to women (i.e., the incidence level is about 100 times smaller among men than among women, accounting for one percent of all breast cancer diagnoses), but it can be particularly deadly if and when it does strike.

Take the American Cancer Society’s estimate as an example.  This year, they estimate that 1,910 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer.  And by the end of this year, nearly 450 men will have died from it.

The number of men afflicted with breast cancer has increased.  It’s been a fairly slow increase since 2004 when there were about 1,600 newly diagnosed cases, but the increase has been more dramatic when compared to what it was 25 years ago.  Then, the rate was 0.86 per 100,000 men; today that rate stands at 1.08 per 100,000 men.

Of course the best way to spread the word about male breast cancer is for more people to talk about it.  And besides headlines and public service announcements, that’s best accomplished with the help of male public figures, especially those that have been diagnosed with it.

Rod Roddy, the announcer for The Price Is Right, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003; he died the same year.  But before he died, he lamented how he could have prevented breast cancer had he simply gotten a mammogram (prior to being diagnosed with breast cancer, Roddy was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2001).

Someone else that wishes he’d got a mammogram sooner is Peter Criss, drummer, and one of the founding members of Knights In Satan Service, otherwise known as KISS.

After feeling a lump in his pectoral region in 2007, Criss underwent a lumpectomy three months later.  Today, he’s cancer-free.  And while his former band mates are in the throes of an arena tour, he’s on a media tour, pounding home the message that men should join their wives when they schedule their yearly mammograms.

“It can happen to you,” said Criss to Reuters.  “And when it does, if you don’t deal with it right away, you’ll go in the box and we’ll see you.”

In summary, breast cancer can and does strike men.  Practice self-exams by gently rubbing around your nipple area to feel for lumps while in the shower.  If there is a lump, don’t cast it off as an infection that will heal itself.  Get it checked out.  Understand that the mammogram itself won’t be pleasant—as Criss said to Reuters, it can even be “excruciating”—but it’s much better than the alternative.

Give those pecs a check!

Sources
reuters.com
hometestingblog.testcountry.com
innovations-report.com
cancer.org
reuters.com