When he went public with his breast-cancer diagnosis, Mathew Knowles, 68, had a message: men get breast cancer, too. In fact, about 2,620 men are diagnosed with invasive breast cancer each year, and 520 will die from it.
Read MoreStop the Spread Now
To illustrate how easily the coronavirus can spread, he tapped Eleanor Earl, Director of the Film Studies Program at Hampton University to produce a video for social media, who assembled a team. “Everything came together in record timing … there is urgency in getting this important message out: Stop the Spread Now — that’s what I want people to do.”An Early Symptom
Knowles told Dr. Oz that a drop of blood on his t-shirt — in the nipple area — was the first sign of a problem. Early in his career, Knowles had sold breast imaging equipment and recognized the blood as a possible symptom: “That’s when I knew I needed to go and get a mammogram.” Knowles also knew his family had a strong history of breast cancer.
RELATED: Yes, Men Get Breast Cancer, Too
“I was fortunate to be stage 1A and it hadn’t spread.” But the news that he carried the BRCA2 gene mutation for breast cancer surprised him. He had surgery in July 2019 surgery and, afterward, his children were tested and “were fortunate not to have the mutation,” he said.
BRCA Gene Mutations in Men
Both BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations are rare. On average, about 1 in 400 people will carry the mutation. In African-Americans, the BRCA2 mutation is more common (about 3% carry it, compared to 1% for BRCA1).
“It means I have four things to be concerned about: prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, melanoma, and breast cancer,” Knowles said in his GMA interview. “The rest of my life, I have to be very much aware and conscious and do all of the early detection … constant mammograms, constant prostate exams, constant MRI for the rest of my life.”
“I know a breast cancer clinic don’t treat dudes usually…,” Antwoine Muhammad, Chicago hip-hop artist, raps in this brilliant take on the male patient experience: “But do I look like a ‘Mrs’?”
His cancer diagnosis and BRCA2 mutation forced Knowles to make his health a priority and be vigilant about screening — he acknowledged to Strayhan that he is lucky that he caught his breast cancer early.
RELATED: When Should I Get A Mammogram?
Like so many survivors, he said that cancer changed his outlook on life. He’s not sweating the small stuff, and he made some health changes such as fitting more exercise into his life and cutting out alcohol.
Speaking Out: Male Breast Cancer
He also had an important message for men — particularly black men, for whom breast cancer is more common. “The numbers we have for men on breast cancer are not adequate,” Knowles said. “Because we don’t have enough men that come forward, that take the exam.
I’m hoping by me coming here today, speaking out, letting folks know that you can survive this … but it has to be early detection. And I can’t over-emphasize the word ‘early’.”
Knowles is right to urge black men to be aware of breast cancer risk — even though breast cancer is about 70 times less common among black men than it is in black women, according to American Cancer Society statistics, both black men and women tend to have a worse prognosis when it comes to the disease.
Another issue with men and breast cancer is that men are more likely than women to ignore symptoms — especially symptoms that indicate breast cancer. Marc Futterweit, a two-time male breast cancer survivor who has taken his advocacy for the disease on the road, told SurvivorNet that a lot of men either don’t report or wait too long to report symptoms — and by that point, the cancer has spread. Like Knowles, he urged men to speak up about symptoms.
Few Clinical Trials Include Men
“If you feel something, say something, go get it checked,” Futterweit said. “This is not a death sentence anymore. You can beat this.”
While early detection is key with male breast cancer, there’s also the issue of breast cancer drugs not being tested on men. Recently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took a step to remedy that problem, by releasing a new guidance document urging the medical industry to do a better job of including men in clinical trials. The document pointed out that most breast cancer drugs are tested in trials that enroll either very few male patients, or no male patients at all.
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