Angelina Jolie has double mastectomy

I figured he was wrong but didn't want to argue without having facts.
After all it's his life. If he thinks it's only worth living with cigarettes, who am I to tell him to stop smoking?
But it makes me sad as well.

 

They are two completely different cancers and are not in any way, shape or form related.

The BRCA gene is specifically related to a specifically bad breast cancer and ovarian cancer to a lesser extend. Not other cancers, as far as we know. Colon has a whole other genetic mutation characteristics that put you in a predisposed position, or harder to treat type. lung, another etc.
But any cancer risk increases as we grow older and risks for mutations get higher, more errors by the DNA 'reading machine'.

You can get breast cancer metastases other places than the breast, but if you did a double mastectomy, before any trace of cancer, you will still have a small risk of developing breast cancer with the BRCA gene (or ovarian cancer), but that risk as I mentioned is not related to other cancers as far as we know.

You can't worry about it, you go crazy. But do self exams of breast and your moles and get those tests such as colonoscopy, mamogram, when schedule say so.

 

Have you ever heard about women developing what is categorized as "BC" on mammograms, but that it is in many cases what a few docs have come to recognize as some sort of 'cycling'... that it goes away naturally... do you know what I'm referring to? ... I read on it a few years ago and saw some BC docs talk on it... I hope I'm explaining it correctly. (I didn't research it, just asking from memory).

 

Not entirely sure what u are referring to but I have cysts that cycle, that when they stared to pop up, raised red flags for further investigation. Those cysts though, are smooth, which cancer lumps very rarely are. May be what you are talking about?

I get mine aspirated w new needle by a doc if they get too painful. But I haven't felt one for a long while now.

 

Yes, like raider said. One cancer certainly don't stop u from having another, people get more than one cancer all the time. I hope u can talk some sense into him.

 

so sad

all u can do is :freehug: while ur still here

 

I tried to look it up and found something somewhat similar to what I was vaguely recalling (though I do recall a female BC doc on Oprah expounding on it)...

Here is a an excerpt on this study-

"...Dr. Kaplan and his colleague, Dr. Franz Porzsolt, an oncologist at the University of Ulm, said in an editorial that accompanied the study, “If the spontaneous remission hypothesis is credible, it should cause a major re-evaluation in the approach to breast cancer research and treatment.”

The study was conducted by Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, a researcher at the VA Outcomes Group in White River Junction, Vt., and Dartmouth Medical School; Dr. Per-Henrik Zahl of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health; and Dr. Jan Maehlen of Ulleval University Hospital in Oslo.

It compared two groups of women ages 50 to 64 in two consecutive six-year periods.

One group of 109,784 women was followed from 1992 to 1997. Mammography screening in Norway was initiated in 1996. In 1996 and 1997, all were offered mammograms, and nearly every woman accepted.

The second group of 119,472 women was followed from 1996 to 2001. All were offered regular mammograms, and nearly all accepted. ...

***

....The issue is the unintended consequences that can come with our screening,” Dr. Fletcher said, meaning biopsies for lumps that were not cancers or, it now appears, sometimes treating a cancer that might not have needed treatment. “In general we tend to underplay them.”

Dr. Welch said the cancers in question had broken through the milk ducts, where most breast cancers begin, and invaded the breast. Such cancers are not microscopic, often are palpable, and are bigger and look more ominous than those confined to milk ducts, so-called ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS, Dr. Welch said. Doctors surgically remove invasive cancers and, depending on the circumstances, may also treat women with radiation, chemotherapy or both.

The study’s design was not perfect, but researchers say the ideal study is not feasible. It would entail screening women, randomly assigning them to have their screen-detected cancers treated or not, and following them to see how many untreated cancers went away on their own.

But, they said, they were astonished by the results.

“I think everybody is surprised by this finding,” Dr. Kaplan said. He and Dr. Porzsolt spent a weekend reading and re-reading the paper.

“Our initial reaction was, ‘This is pretty weird,’ ” Dr. Kaplan said. “But the more we looked at it, the more we were persuaded.”

Dr. Barnett Kramer, director of the Office of Disease Prevention at the National Institutes of Health, had a similar reaction. “People who are familiar with the broad range of behaviors of a variety of cancers know spontaneous regression is possible,” he said. “But what is shocking is that it can occur so frequently.”

Although the researchers cannot completely rule out other explanations, Dr. Kramer said, “they do a good job of showing they are not highly likely.” ...

Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/health/25breast.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

I had a colonoscopy in january. The exam found one small pollyp and it wasn't cancerous. Thank God. I have to wait ten years later for the next one. I hope I am still clear then.

 

That's good news. Best wishes to you for continued good health.

 

Do you have to wait the 10 years? I don't think I could. Five yes...

Good to hear it was all ok.

 

Gotcha! Yes, this has come up in my did mission with some of my BC doc customers, but I'm not sure we know what to do with it
There is a huge effort bring made in immuno oncology as we do have an innate system to fight some cancers. But cancers can disguise themselves to evade the immuno system. Some instances, see believe the immunosystem is able to fight it off, but when? Why?
Each person has a very, very unique version of an immonologic system so its very complicated. Melanoma, lung, breast and kidney seems to be the ones that seem most immunogenic, especially melanoma.

There is tremendous efforts to try to use our own immunosystem, and molecules that mimic specific desired innate molecules that do specific things in the immuno system. Hopefully, we can build on these spontaneous regressions

 

Five years from now would be over doing it. Ten is reasonable. But, I have to see my doctor about that. Prepping for the colonoscopy was very much a pain in the ass.lol

 

My mom had a benign cycst years ago - is that what the BC means? A biopsy revealed it was benign and I don't think she even had it aspirated. Don't know if it's still there or it dissolved or what. But she waited almost 3 weeks for the biopsy results!!! That's insane, when you're terrified you might have cancer.

 

Cancer does have a nasty habit of spreading. I hope someone in his life can talk some sense into him.

Isn't skin cancer the most treatable of the cancers if found early?

 

Yesterday her photo is on the headlines of almost every country in the world. She did a editorial of her operation and it went super viral. Her dianosis is a young science which had to be tested many times.