New breast cancer treatment options being made available to men
HAMILTON, Ohio (WKRC) - It is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and a local husband and father wants to remind us men get the disease too.
For a long time, men treated for breast cancer were told they had one standard for treatment. Now, this man is sharing his story so everyone knows that that is no longer the case.
By the time Scott Chandley found Dr. Hilary Shapiro-Wright, a surgeon at Fort Hamilton Hospital Breast Center, he'd already been told he needed a complete mastectomy for a diagnosis of breast cancer.
"The hardest part for me was telling my sons," said Chandley.
But it turned out, he didn't need a mastectomy. A recent study in the Journal of Surgical Oncology is giving men newer options for what's called breast-conserving therapy.
"Something we call a lumpectomy, similar to what we do in women, with the addition of radiation, as long as we can get clear margins, meaning no cancer left behind," said Dr. Shapiro-Wright.
So Chandley opted for breast-conserving surgery along with a much better cosmetic outcome, genetic testing for tissue typing and family risk and the option of hormone therapy.
"We know now that these men do as well as if they had mastectomy, and, in some cases, even better, long-term," Dr. Shapiro-Wright said.
Chandley is now sharing his story so other men will know that there are newer options, and, just like for women, therapy is not one-size-fits-all and that men need to remember they're at risk too.
"It's important for men to check themselves the same way as women," Dr. Shapiro-Wright said.
Chandley is now in follow-up therapy to his surgery and doing well. He does have a family history of this disease in an uncle, who he says did tell him years ago to be aware and may have helped save his life.
Only about 1 percent of men are diagnosed with this cancer each year, but, often because they don't look for it, it's in more advanced stages.
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