It was thought that they were too young for breast cancer. They were wrong

Melissa Rojas was a week away from her wedding anniversary when she learned that she had breast cancer. The 28-year-old nurse did not have a family history of the disease.

Jasmine Harris was 26 years old and was working as a health coordinator in a hospital when she felt a lump in her chest while she was taking a shower.

Joan Bauman, 45, was the mother of four ultramarathons running when a mass in her chest became more painful.

All three were considered "too young" for breast cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, less than 5% of women under 40 are diagnosed each year. However, more than 12,000 breast cancer diagnoses among women under 40 years of age this year and more than 26,000 among women under age 45, according to the NCI.

Rare, but more aggressive

According to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the median age of a breast cancer diagnosis in American women is 62 years old. Researchers say that breast cancer among younger women tends to be more aggressive because it is often diagnosed later, it is even more advanced and insurance companies set a minimum age for mammograms, which may discourage detection.

In addition, because the numbers are relatively small, some doctors do not always conclude with cancer as a finding in younger women. In fact, according to a 2009 study by the Journal of Oncology on breast cancer among younger women, nearly 80% of young women with breast cancer have themselves discovered a breast abnormality.

As such, they may need to get their doctor to have a mammogram, an ultrasound or a biopsy.

Harris, the 26-year-old woman, first expressed her concerns to her gynecologist, who thought she was suffering from a cyst linked to her menstrual cycle. He told her to come back after the cycle. She did it and asked for an ultrasound, because the mass had not left. The ultrasound showed a mass requiring a biopsy. The biopsy, performed in August 2015, returned positive.

"The doctor seated me and stopped apologizing," Harris said, referring to his radiologist's reaction.

Harris was treated for triple negative breast cancer. After four cycles of chemotherapy, her tumor was gone. She then underwent a double mastectomy followed by one month of radiation therapy.

Three months later, she learned that she was pregnant, a big surprise since she had not frozen her eggs. (Chemotherapy and radiation can make women infertile.) She gave birth to a healthy baby nine months later.

"Take the test, no matter what your age," she says. "Just do the test."

Rojas, the 28-year-old nurse, had a similar experience with her doctors. In December 2012, she felt a lump during her self-examination and went to a breast cancer clinic to have it checked. There, she was told that she was too young for cancer. Rojas underwent a mammogram that came back negative. Six months later, after the size became bigger and more painful, she underwent a biopsy. He was diagnosed with invasive stage 3 breast cancer with ductal carcinoma, which had spread to the lymph nodes. After a year of chemotherapy, her tumor shrank, she underwent surgery to remove some of her lymph nodes and began a month of radiation therapy. In September 2014, six months after the end of her radiotherapy treatments, she became pregnant.

Although Rojas froze her eggs, which cost her $ 20,000 in insurance costs, she had a natural pregnancy. After the birth of his son, Rojas felt himself hardening along the scar tissue of his chest. His doctor said that it was normal for the scar tissue to harden over time.

She insisted that an ultrasound reveals a tumor attached to the scar tissue. She had a double mastectomy in August 2016 and underwent eight cycles of chemotherapy. In May 2018, a biopsy of a swollen lymph node revealed that the cancer was back. She had 36 lymph nodes removed two months later.

"Why should I check my chest in my 20s?" said Rojas, who advocates for younger women to do their self-examination and get tested. "Either you go into battle mode, I was going to fight."

Rachel Greengrass, associate rabbi at the Beth Am Temple in Pinecrest, Florida, learned this lesson very early. She found a mass while breastfeeding her 2 year old son. She was 32 years old. She consulted with her doctor, who suggested to her that it was a cyst caused by hormonal changes after her pregnancy. She insisted on having a mammogram, which led to a biopsy. In March 2013, she was diagnosed with triple positive breast cancer.

"As a rabbi, I had known so many women who had undergone cancer treatment," she said. After six cycles of chemotherapy and a bilateral mastectomy, she has not been diagnosed with cancer for five years.

Bauman, the marathoner, has also found skeptical doctors during her journey against breast cancer. She found a mass in her chest in 2015. After having a mammogram, her doctors said that it was nothing. One year later, another mammogram returned benign. Two years later, in February 2018, a biopsy revealed that she had stage 2 breast cancer.

His doctor was incredulous, saying that he could not believe that someone who was running marathons and was relatively young – she had been diagnosed at age 45 – could have breast cancer.

"People say you're a survivor, and I do not agree with that because I've never felt in danger," said Bauman, who underwent four cycles of chemotherapy and had a double mastectomy. April. She ran throughout her chemotherapy. After her last lap, she ran the next day a race of 50 km – 32 km. "I did it myself," said the teacher from Palm City, Florida. "To show that chemotherapy and cancer can not hold me back."

The perception that younger women do not contract cancer has infiltrated into insurance policies. Insurance companies generally do not cover the cost of mammograms of women under the age of 40 unless they are considered high-risk, including a history of breast cancer, a family history of breast cancer, or a history of breast cancer. a genetic mutation. But genetic mutations are rare.

"Only 5 to 10% of breast cancer diagnoses are genetic," said Dr. Joyce Slingerland, director of the Braman Family Breast Cancer Institute at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center of the University of Miami, where Bauman was treated.

None of these women had hereditary cancer or mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which could increase the risk of contracting breast cancer.

Slingerland said that although younger women are not diagnosed as often, the problem is that they are often diagnosed later, which leads to more aggressive cancer.

Tamara Rodriguez, chief financial officer of Fatima Group, a conglomerate focused on the reconstruction of Haiti, was diagnosed at age 35. She stated that she had no history of cancer in her Haitian family, that she did not smoke cigarettes, that she had the typical risk factors associated with cancer breast.

Rodriguez, who later wrote a book titled "Hair to the Queen" to explain breast cancer to her two daughters, was told that she was too young to have breast cancer.

"I would have liked to know that younger women were able to contract cancer," Rodriguez said. "I would have liked to know that even if I led a healthy lifestyle, I could get it.I would like to know the cause of the problem and I would like that there is more tools allowing families to understand breast cancer. "