For you ladies: the breast cancer risk test
https://bcrisktool.cancer.gov/calculator.html
As much as I do not trust the NIH or any other 3 letter government alphabet soup, I do believe this is a good personal screener you can take at home to have a look at your overall risk for breast cancer. In the age of people mitigating risk of radiation and other screening tests (opting out of colonoscopies and yearly mammos), this is another option to weigh your risk offset of saying no to tests you may not want to do.
I personally took this test. My 5 year risk of breast cancer is 1.6%. My lifetime risk of having breast cancer at any point up to the age of 90 is 11.1%. Risk does go up with age, and I am 47. I do have 1 family member that had breast cancer in 2014, my mom had early stage 1 ductal, no chemo or radiation, opted for mastectomy. Has had zero issues since. She was 64 when it was diagnosed. (Sorry to out your age mom ❤️) There are no other incidences of breast cancer in my first line family, and we did find out she was BRCA negative.
I took the test twice, once with the answer of no one in my family had a breast cancer diagnosis, and then the second time with the answer that there was one person in my family who was diagnosed with breast cancer. The risk elevation was minimal. My 5 year risk went from 1.1% to 1.6% and my lifetime risk went from 9.8% to 11.1%. Pretty minimal nominal risk change.
Have a look at your own score ladies. It takes 30 seconds to take the online screener, no email or sign up required. Gentleman, share this with the women in your life. I do think it is important to look at risk, and to also have a game plan of what you would do if you do find yourself with a cancer diagnosis. Many people are opting for non traditional treatment versus chemo and radiation. One point of interest……in the screener, one of the questions is if you have had a Hodgkins diagnosis and previous RADIATION to your chest. I personally know of a long time friend whose mother had breast cancer, had high dose radiation to her chest after radiation, and developed multiple myeloma as a consequence to that radiation. Her oncologist was watching her labs closely for that to possibly happen. Just some food for thought.
Thank you. I had a breast specialist go over this with me a few years ago. My totals are low like yours but what I did notice and asked was why diet wasn’t a factor and she said it didn’t matter. Come on, if I was overweight and ate mostly ultra processed food I find that hard to believe that would not be a factor in increasing risk. She was advocating for me, at such a low risk, to take an EUA 3D contrast mammogram being tested in Austin. I’ve opted not to do mammograms anymore and use a digital thermal screening not covered by insurance of course. That is highly frowned upon and I was lectured for most of the appointment on how this is not FDA approved. It just seems like doing these more invasive screenings are going to expose you to more radiation, unknown color contrast issues and will catch things that may never end up being cancer.
As a guy who is BRCA positive, I get regular screenings. The BRCA runs strong in my family. Somehow I managed to not pass it on. My wife must have VERY dominant genes. He He Getting the screening and treatment is better than ignoring it and letting the cancer kill you. I've seen close relatives in both situations and while the treatments are no picnic, death by breast cancer is horrible. Get screened for the BRCA gene if you even suspect that breast cancer "runs in your family". Men too.