Jamie Lee Curtis Had a Breast Cancer Scare At Age 40
- Actress Jamie Lee Curtis, 63, who had a breast cancer scare at age 40, gained a new in-law over the weekend, as she celebrated her daughter's wedding.
- Everything turned out fine for Jamie, "but it brought me very close to understanding how lucky I am to have access to all these resources and great doctors," she said.
- Since her breast cancer scare, she's been a staunch advocate for the cancer community.
Jamie's younger daughter, Ruby, 26, married her partner, Kynthia, over the weekend during a cosplay celebration, and the proud new mother-in-law shared multiple photos from the celebration on Instagram.
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Another photo posted to her feed that featured Ruby, a trans woman who was adopted as a baby, and Kynthia mid-embrace was captioned: "YES THEY DO AND DID! MARRIED!"
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Jamie Lee Curtis' Breast Cancer Scare
Thankfully, Jamie Lee Curtis was never diagnosed with breast cancer, however, like countless other women, she had a close encounter with the disease.
"There is not a woman alive who hasn't had some contact with breast cancer, either through a friend or through her own experience with it," the actress said during a prior interview with Baylor Scott & White Health. "I had my own personal moment of truth when I had a biopsy done on a small, questionable lump in my breast."
"It was scary," she added.
Everything turned out fine for Jamie, "but it brought me very close to understanding how lucky I am to have access to all these resources and great doctors," she said.
Since her breast cancer scare, she's been a staunch advocate for the cancer community.
Understanding Breast Cancer
Breast cancer is a common cancer that's been the subject of much research. Many women develop breast cancer every year, but men can develop this cancer, too though it’s more rare, in part, due to the simple fact that they have less breast tissue.
There are many treatment options for people with this disease, but treatment depends greatly on the specifics of each case.
Identifying these specifics means looking into whether the cancerous cells have certain receptors. These receptors the estrogen receptor, the progesterone receptor and the HER2 receptor can help identify the unique features of the cancer and help personalize treatment.
The Unique Features of Breast Cancer: Deciding the Right Course of Treatment
"These receptors I like to imagine them like little hands on the outside of the cell they can grab hold of what we call ligands, and these ligands are essentially the hormones that may be circulating in the bloodstream that can then be pulled into this cancer cell and used as a fertilizer, as growth support for the cells," Dr. Elizabeth Comen, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, previously told SurvivorNet.
One example of a type of ligand that can stimulate a cancer cell is the hormone estrogen, hence why an estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer will grow when stimulated by estrogen. For these cases, your doctor may offer treatment that specifically targets the estrogen receptor. But for HER2-positive breast cancers, therapies that uniquely target the HER2 receptor may be the most beneficial.
"The good news is there are so many different treatments and options available, and doctors really are attuned to trying to understand patients better, to figure out what are their individual needs," Dr. Comen said.
Contributing: Marisa Sullivan
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