男人也会得乳腺癌?
In 2013, I had a CT scan after seeing a couple of specialists about a dry cough. When I went back to the doctor's office for the results, the cough was gone, so I figured there wasn't much to say. I stood up to leave, and the doctor told me to sit down. "You don't hear a doctor say this often," he told me. "You have a lump in your right breast. We can watch it for six months." I looked at him like a deer in headlights. "What are we watching for?" That's how naive I was. He told me it could be malignant. "Malignant-like cancer?" "Yes, men get breast cancer," he said. I had no clue. I had never heard of that in my life. Only one man in 1,000 will get breast cancer in his lifetime. So I figured I had at least a 99% chance that it wasn't cancer! Still, I didn't want to wait six months. I knew I couldn't be at peace knowing cancer was a possibility. I chatted with my primary care doctor, also a good friend, who said he wouldn't be too concerned, but that if I was concerned we should do a biopsy. The biopsy came back malignant. I live not far from Houston, so I went to MD Anderson [Cancer Center] for care. I figured since male breast cancer is rare, I wanted to be treated at a place that dealt with cancer all the time. They did genetic testing that showed I did not have a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation, which increase breast cancer risk. My mother had breast cancer, but because I was negative for those mutations, the doctors thought my DNA just decided to go haywire. Another test showed I only had about an 8% chance of recurrence. But there aren't many treatment options for men other than mastectomy, since we don't have much breast tissue. My wife was very concerned-like any wife would be, I think-but she was making nervous chatter when we talked to my surgeon. |