Preventative Treatment
- Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, a breast cancer survivor, says she is undergoing precautionary radiation treatment for a breast calcification, a “small white spot,” that turned up on a routine six-month scan.
- Calcifications, or calcium deposits in the breast tissue, are benign (non-cancerous), but can sometimes indicate changes occurring in the breast, so just to be safe, Klobuchar will have a few rounds of treatment as a preventative measure. When her doctors found her stage 1A tumor in 2022, they had initially found these calcifications first.
- Last year, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) drafted new recommended guidelines that advise all women to start screening for breast cancer at age 40 – a significant change from 2016, when it said screening should happen between the ages of 50 to 74 years old.
- The recommendation is not for people with a personal history of breast cancer, who have certain genetic factors putting them at high risk of the disease, who have had high-dose radiation to their chest, or who have had high-risk lesions on previous biopsies.
Calcifications, or calcium deposits in the breast tissue, are benign (non-cancerous), but can sometimes indicate breast cancer or “precancerous changes” occurring in the breast, per Mayo Clinic, so just to be safe, Klobuchar will have a few rounds of treatment as a preventative measure.
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“Thanks to early detection and diligent follow-up visits, my doctor says I am now cancer-free,” the wife and mother said.
I wanted to share an update on my health. I encourage everyone to get your routine screenings, exams, and follow-ups. Thankfully I am now cancer free! pic.twitter.com/lHkEfuMaCw
— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) July 12, 2024
Klobuchar first revealed her diagnosis in September 2021, then explained she had a lumpectomy, which is surgery to remove the cancerous breast tissue only, which is different from a mastectomy, which removes the entire breast. She had a course of radiation and said overall, her treatment “went well.”
“Of course this has been scary at times, since cancer is the word all of us fear, but at this point my doctors believe that my chances of developing cancer again are no greater than the average person,” she said at the time.
What Is Stage 1A Breast Cancer?
In general, early stage breast cancer, or stage 1, means there’s a small tumor in the breast and that no lymph nodes are involved.
Dr. Michael Zeidman, assistant professor of surgery at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, previously explained to SurvivorNet that stage 1 is divided into two subcategories 1a and 1b.
“Stage 1a breast cancer means the cancer hasn’t spread outside the breast. This is what happened in Klobuchar’s case as calcifications were discovered only in her right breast,” he said. “Stage 1b means there’s no tumor in the breast; instead, small groups of cancer cells are found in the lymph nodes. Stage 1b can also mean there’s a tumor in the breast as well as small groups of cancer cells in the lymph nodes.”
“Stage 1 also means the cancer was caught very early,” Dr. Zeidman added, noting that the difference between stage 1a and 1b is almost splitting hairs, as the prognosis is “excellent” regardless.
“For a patient, while I do think it’s important to know the difference (in stages), it really makes no difference,” Zeidman says. “The prognosis is more or less going to be the same.”
That prognosis is between 98% and 100% survival rate. This is why it’s so important to catch breast cancer early, as advanced stages will lower that percentage considerably.
Don’t Delay Cancer Screenings
During her health journey, Klobuchar, like many survivors, became impassioned to advocate for breast cancer screening,
Screenings for breast cancer and cervical cancer through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Early Detection Program dropped 87% and 84% respectively during the height of the pandemic, according to CDC data released in 2022. For cancer across the board, in some cities hit hard by COVID, cancer screenings dropped nearly 70%.
Klobuchar said she was one of those people who delayed their cancer screenings because of the pandemic, and she used her diagnosis announcement as a space to advise people not to do what she did.
“I also want to call attention to the fact that many people have been delaying physicals and routine examinations because of the pandemic. I know that because I delayed mine,” she said. “In fact, more than one in three adults reported delaying or forgoing health care because of coronavirus-related concerns.”
“Studies have found that thousands of people who missed their mammogram due to the pandemic may be living with undetected breast cancer,” Klobuchar added. “Over and over, doctors are seeing patients who are being treated for more serious conditions that could have been caught earlier.”
Dr. Senayet Agonafer, radiologist at Montefiore Medical Center on the importance of screening for breast cancer
Klobuchar concluded saying that she hopes her experience serves as a “reminder for everyone of the value of routine health checkups, exams, and follow-through. I am so fortunate to have caught the cancer at an early enough stage and to not need chemotherapy or other extensive treatments, which unfortunately is not the case for so many others.”
Newer Guidelines for Mammograms
Last year, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) drafted new recommended guidelines that advise all women to start screening for breast cancer at age 40 – a significant change from 2016, when it said screening should happen between the ages of 50 to 74 years old.
“While the Task Force has consistently recognized the lifesaving value of mammography, we previously recommended that women in their 40s make an individual decision about when to start screening based on their health history and preferences,” the USPSTF said. “In this new recommendation, the Task Force now recommends that all women get screened starting at age 40.”
Mammograms are still the best tool for detecting breast cancer
The new recommendations apply to women with an average risk of breast cancer, including people with a family history of the disease and risk factors like dense breasts.
The recommendation is not for people with a personal history of breast cancer, who have certain genetic factors putting them at high risk of the disease, who have had high-dose radiation to their chest, or who have had high-risk lesions on previous biopsies.
The task force added that more research needs to be conducted on whether women with dense breasts will need additional screening starting at 40 and what are the pros and cons of screening women older than 75.
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