Fact or Myth: Men Don’t Have Breast Cancer!

I spoke with several Filipino men whose family members died of breast cancer. They openly shared their experiences of how difficult it was for the whole family, however it was clear there was underlying message of how much pain and suffering their loved-one went through. Knowing a little bit about the culture, I had a gut feeling they want to talk to me about it but it was just too hard to talk about it. Why bring back the painful past! Out of respect and from prior experience I did not press the topic, believing this conversation was down a dead-end road. But I was caught off guard when they asked me; “Do men get breast cancer?” From their facial expression, I sensed a different emotion than talking about their relative’s end-of-life experiences. They seemed worried about “What if I will get cancer too” or perhaps thinking about their own mortality. Many questions ran through my mind on how to answer the question. Were they asking me because they really wanted to know? Or they just want some reassurance, “It isn’t going to happen to me”. The truth is I can give all the facts and statistic about men with breast cancer. But I thought about “What is my answer going to do to their feelings? What should I say? What would I say?

Fact 1: All women are at risk. Approximately 70% of breast cancers occur in women with none of the known risk factors. For men, the lifetime risk of getting breast cancer is about 1 in 1,000.

Fact 2: Only about 5% of breast cancers are inherited. About 80% of women diagnosed with breast cancer will be the first to be victims in their families. Breast cancer risk is increased if other members of the family (blood relatives) have had breast cancer. About 1 out of 5 men with breast cancer have a close relative with some type of cancer.

Fact 3: Early detection does NOT prevent breast cancer. Avoiding and eliminating known causes will prevent breast cancer!

Fact 4: Mammography fails to detect as much as 20% of all breast cancer and as much as 40% in women under the age of 50. Because breast cancer is so uncommon in men, so they tend to not be concerned about breast cancer and its possible warning signs. Some men even ignore the symptoms and delay medical treatment until the cancer has reached an advanced stage. This is why male breast cancers are likely to be stage III or stage IV when diagnosed.

Fact 5: 1 out of 4 who are diagnosed with breast cancer die within the first five years. No less than 40% die within 10 years.

Fact 6: Risk factors are not necessarily causes of breast cancer. Enough evidence exists linking environmental pollution and contamination to cause breast cancer. The risk factors in men are alcohol, obesity, Estrogen treatment, or radiation exposure.

Fact 7: The global incidence of breast cancer has tremendously risen by 256% in the past 30 years with Southeast Asia increasing by 479%! And the ‘authorities’ and ‘experts’ that should know; don't know why. 

Fact 8: Breast cancer is the leading killer of women ages 35 to 54 worldwide. More than a million women develop breast cancer without knowing it and almost 500,000 die from it every year.

Fact 9: 1 out of 13 Filipino women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. The province of Pampanga has the highest incidence rate in the entire country.

Fact 10: The Philippines has the highest incidence rate of breast cancer in Asia and registered the highest increase of 589% among 187 countries over a 30 year period from 1980 to 2010.

Everyone is at Risk!

Philippine Breast Cancer Network