Many people are under the impression that breast cancer only strikes women. This is not the case. Men can develop breast cancer, and the rate of male breast cancer in the United States is increasing. Health scientists have noted that men with breast cancer have worse outcomes than women, and they are working to find ways to correct this.
According to the latest figures, men make up approximately one percent of those with breast cancer. In 2016, 2,670 men were diagnosed with breast cancer. Men diagnosed with breast from 2004 through 2014 had a lower survival rate after five years than did women breast cancer patients.
Scientists are working to discover why men are having worse outcomes than women. One of the reasons that scientists have come up with is that men’s breast cancer is usually more advanced when they first seek treatment. Many men do not even realize that they can get breast cancer, so they ignore the initial signs of the disease. Those men that do suspect that they have breast cancer sometimes feel embarrassed about having what is considered by many a woman’s disease.
One finding that has troubled scientists is that men often have worse treatment outcomes than women because men are not given the same treatment regimen as women. While over 70 percent of women are placed on advanced endocrine treatments for breast cancer, only about 58 percent of men are placed on the same type of treatment.
Failure to follow the treatment that is outlined by the doctor is also a cause of men’s poor breast cancer outcomes. Scientists and researchers have found that many men do not stay on the treatment protocol. For instance, breast cancer patients are often prescribed tamoxifen to be taken for a five to ten year period. Scientists find that most men are not following this protocol.
In order to help men get better outcomes, the Food and Drug Administration is asking pharmaceutical companies to include men in the trials for new breast cancer drugs. Scientists are also looking for ways to specifically treat male breast cancer patients whose tumors may present differently than breast tumors in women.
