top of page
SBC Logo 200 px x 200 px.png
Accessibility Tools

Upcoming
events

A Breast Cancer Manifesto for Men

Writer's picture: Surviving Breast CancerSurviving Breast Cancer

By Rod Ritchie


Although around one percent of new cases diagnosed are males, going through breast cancer treatment affects people regardless of their gender.


Therefore, patient advocates for men with this disease are looking to build and promote a consistent profile and narrative within all cancer groups for breast cancer. The aim is to enable a more balanced perspective for men and support improved health outcomes.


Men’s MBC prognosis


Several years ago, the author, a Stage 3B IBC survivor, and Stage 4 friend, Rob Fincher realized men with breast cancer have a poorer prognosis than women.3


This is because they are more often diagnosed at a later stage. As well, they can be reluctant to present themselves with symptoms because of the stigma. Moreover, their health practitioners commonly do not recognize symptoms early enough.

Then, there is a lack of male-specific clinical research and trials. This means that treatment for men follows protocols that were developed for women.

Bringing about change

Breast cancer charities are almost exclusively fixated on using pink to denote breast cancer. This is fine because women are getting the message. However, the community is largely unaware that males get this disease as well.


It is estimated that this year, 2,360 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in men in the U.S., 350 in the U.K., and 150 in Australia. In some African countries, the rate of male diagnosis is as high as 30 percent of new cases. Worldwide, 20,828 men will die from the disease annually.1

In a 2012 study that assessed more than 13,000 male breast cancers from the U.S. National Cancer Database, men with breast cancer were found to be less likely to survive the disease than women. All we ask of ask breast cancer groups is that they give us a fair go and assist in raising public awareness of the genderless nature of this disease.