Middle‐age women now have a slightly higher cancer risk than their male counterparts, and young women are nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed with the disease as young men, according to the report, published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. It appears that breast and thyroid cancers in women are driving this increasing trend.
“Breast and thyroid cancer account for almost half of all cancer diagnoses in women younger than 50,” said Rebecca Siegel, lead author of the report and senior scientific director of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society.
‘We’re seeing some shifting’
Kiki was 37 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2018.
Sharp pain in her armpit had radiated to her breast, and she had asked three of her doctors to order a mammogram to check for cancer. But each told her that a mammogram was unnecessary at her age, she said.
“Just because I was younger, I feel like they didn’t take me seriously,” Kiki said. “But I kept pushing the issue, saying, ‘No, something’s not right.’”
It took months, Kiki said, but she eventually got a mammogram. It showed signs of cancer, and a biopsy confirmed the diagnosis.
“I was an early stage,” said Kiki, a mother of three who works from home.
For treatment, she had both breasts removed in a double mastectomy and received the hormone therapy drug tamoxifen.
Charmella stayed by her sister’s side throughout the illness. And in the years after, Charmella said, she was inspired to stay on top of her routine breast cancer screenings by getting mammograms.
In the summer of 2022, one of those mammograms revealed that Charmella, a high school teacher and mother of two, had stage I breast cancer. She was 44 at the time.
After getting her own diagnosis, Charmella immediately called Kiki.
“I was devastated,” Kiki said. “The first thing I thought: not again.”
Charmella quickly started treatment: six rounds of chemotherapy and a month of radiation.