2019 Breast Cancer Awareness

BREAST CANCER AWARENESS GUIDE The Herald â– YO U R C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R S I N C E 1 8 9 5 D U B O I S C O U N T Y H E R A L D. C O M

DUBOIS COUNTY, INDIANA FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2019 SECTION B

breast cancer awareness

Stories from Survivors

C

Phyllis Reynolds

Tina Hunt

Judy Atwood

Deanne Seifert

Reen Gutgsell

Connie Helming

onnie Helming knows she is very lucky.

In the past 22 months, the Jasper woman has gone through two different kinds of cancer — one of which was breast cancer — and survived.

The first diagnosis came in December 2017, after she underwent surgery for diverticulitis.

“The doctor got in and saw the cancer, and he was afraid to do anything. So he took some out and then closed me up.”

It was peritoneal carcinoma, a rare cancer that develops in a thin layer of tissue lining the abdomen.

As she was recovering from the surgery, “I just felt this glow, and it dawned on me: cancer,” Connie said. “And I thought, ‘Thank you, Lord, that you didn’t give it to one of my children.’ Because I can handle this.”

The sample that was removed was analyzed to determine the severity of the cancer. And then Connie went through chemotherapy.

“I had nine treatments, six hours at a time.” After the first three treatments, she underwent surgery in January in Evansville. The doctor cleaned out the rest of the cancer and she had three more chemotherapy treatments. Those were completed by May 2018.

“I lost all my hair,” she recalled. But then I got better. And my hair grew back.

Her family took it a lot harder. But her family — husband, Bernie, and children Stacey Emmons, Chad, Ann Hayworth and Caren Helming — were there to support her every step of the way.

“I guess I was sicker than I thought,” she

“You can think life is so easy, and you keep going.

And in a second, things change. You can hear that every day, but you don’t believe it until it happens.” ­— Connie Helming, Jasper said. “My thing was getting better. Their focus was taking care of me. They knew more [upfront] than I did. It was a lot to process.”

She also got support from friends, especially Tina Hunt, Stacey’s best friend. Tina was a breast cancer survivor and was going through follow-up surgeries for reconstruction and subsequent infections. When Tina learned that Connie had the first round of cancer, she visited her.

“She came and sat with me and talked to me,” Connie said.

She also gave Connie a binder to keep all her documents, insurance information, appointment cards, medicine sheets and any other information that she would get and need to give out during her treatment.

“She made it all up for me, and all I had to do was fill it up,” Connie said. “She said that this was the things I’ll need to know, the information they’ll keep asking me for.

And it’s true.”

Connie was grateful to have the pink binder.

“They ask you what date this happened, or what date did that happen. And if you don’t write it down, you forget because everything is so overwhelming when you’re going through it,” Connie said. “So not everything sticks and register.”

Tina also brought Connie a blanket, two

t-shirts and an orange lamp “that is supposed to give off good vibes,” Connie said.

“I’ve never unplugged that. It’s in my window. And I cherish it.”

This past May, Connie’s doctor scheduled her for a mammogram, which she got.

“And then you get the call ... that something is wrong,” she said. “Something is there.”

She underwent an ultrasound, then a biopsy, then an MRI, then an in-depth biopsy.

They confirmed that it was breast cancer.

“The cancer cells were close to my chest wall, so they had to go deeper,” she said.

She pulled out her pink binder again to keep track of all the information she needed. But, she also felt very lucky. “They found it at Stage One,” she said. “And I wouldn’t have thought to have my mammogram until September, which was when I usually had them.”

Her doctor also checked for and found lymph nodes, and removed one. It was not cancerous.

On Sept. 4, Connie had surgery in Evansville to have the cancer cells removed. The oncologist also removed three lymph nodes, which turned out to not be cancerous.

“My doctor told me that this was a walk in the park compared to the last time,” Connie said. “It did go well. I’ve not gotten sick.

Stories & photos by Herald staff

I could do my chemotherapy and drive myself home. I’ve been blessed.”

She also knew that many people were praying for her. “It was so comforting to know that,” she said.

Connie will start getting radiation treatments Oct. 9; those will be for 15 minutes a day, five days a week, for four weeks. After that, she will be given a hormone blocker pill to take for five years.

“I’m still making hormones,” she said, “And that’s what started the cancer cell for the breast cancer.”

She retired after her first cancer ordeal.

And since going through both cancers, her outlook on life has changed some.

“I love deeper. Pictures are prettier. And I stay in bed longer, only because I can,” she said. “And friends, I hug them harder and hug them longer. And even when they start to pull away, I hold on for a second longer.”

She is thankful that she has her family near, including her 12 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren; two more greatgrandchildren are on the way.

Connie still has the lamp Tina gave her turned on in her house, and she still uses the blanket. The shirts are now pillow covers on my bed. And the filled binder is still on her bookshelf.

“I’m afraid of getting cancer again,” she said. “If I get it again, I’ll have my stuff ready.”

The binder also serves as a reminder of her blessings, she said.

“It’s a part of me. It’s a part of me that I thank God for,” Connie said, “that it happened to me, and I could handle it. I don’t ever want to forget it.”

the herald ■ Friday, October 4, 2019

Never going to lie down and give up Reen Gutgsell of Jasper found the lump while eating breakfast on the day of her parents’ wedding anniversary. Then a pharmacist, she raised her arms into the air, leaned back and felt something strange on her chest.

Eight months earlier, three hospitals examined a mammogram taken of Gutgsell’s breasts, and each hospital concluded she was cancer free. Not even a year later, in October 2000, a “pretty good-sized tumor” had manifested, and doctors warned that she might not make it.

Gutgsell always knew she would likely develop the disease because it runs in her family. She also knew that no matter what, she was never going to lie down and give up.

“It didn’t even shake me up,” she said of her diagnosis. “Everybody else went nuts, and I was like, ‘calm down.’”

Still, the cancer was spreading quickly, and she was eager to have the tumor plucked from her body. Her double mastectomy surgery took place in Indianapolis on the night before the Indiana-Purdue football game that would determine whether the Boilermakers would play in the 2001 Rose Bowl game.

Gutgsell — who graduated from Purdue and is a big football fan — talked trash with members of the surgery team before being put under. When they removed her gown, the team found two stickers on her breasts.

“Go Purdue” read one. “Beat IU” read the other. Purdue won the game 41-13.

“They went crazy,” Gutgsell said with a laugh. “I guess they screamed and hollered and laughed, and just carried on. They couldn’t believe it.”

Doctors later applauded her sense of humor, and Gutgsell told them that’s how she deals with her troubles. She also places her life in God’s hands.

A year after completing chemotherapy and radiation, the cancer spread into her bones. While swimming, she felt a horrible pain in her ribs. She immediately knew what it was.

For the first time, she felt scared. The rule of thumb at that time was that once cancer entered the bones, you were as good as gone. That’s when she crossed into a stage 4 cancer classification.

She spent two days praying in front of a crucifix. Her doctor, Marc Campbell, lifted her up and told her that she could beat it.

“He was the big cheerleader in my corner,” she said. “He was the most positive person I had on my team.”

Other doctors were negative in their assessments, she said. They gave her a year to live.

“And that’s when I got ticked off at them,” Gutgsell recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t have an expiration date stamped on my butt, and only God knows when I’m going home.’ So I said, ‘Stop this crap.’”

But Campbell was always there for her.

Now, she is alive and thriving. Among other things, she teaches a Bible study class for high school sophomores. 17 years after the cancer spread into her bones, the disease remains in remission.

“I base everything on my faith,” Gutgsell said. “And for about 15 years now, I’ve tried to keep every day very God-centered.”

She said laughter was the best medicine she received during her treatments, and she encouraged anyone who feels pain that could be cancer to see a medical professional.

Saying “no” a lot less often these days Since being diagnosed with breast cancer, Judy (Buechlein) Atwood finds herself saying “no” a lot less often.

If her grandkids want to play in the mud, “Sure,” she says.

If they want to make slime, “Why not?” she asks.

“We say no too quickly,” the Jasper woman says. “We need to say yes more often.”

Judy, 58, was diagnosed with breast cancer two days before Christmas in 2008. She had a double mastectomy and a total hysterectomy, followed by radiation treatments all within the next year.

She was then cancer free.

But four and a half years later in July 2014, the cancer came back, and she’s been on chemotherapy treatments ever since.

breast cancer awareness ■ page 3

She currently travels to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America Chicago in Zion, Illinois, every four weeks for chemo.

Her cancer is considered Stage 4, since it’s metastasized to her lymph nodes and her omentum, which is the fatty tissue that connects and supports abdominal structures like the stomach and liver.

She says her current chemo treatments are “helping a lot,” as both her tumor markers and the size of her tumors have gone down.

“I’m very thankful,” Judy says. “I still have my good days and bad days, but right now, I have more good than bad. I am very blessed.”

Judy leans on her Catholic faith — her family attends Precious Blood Catholic Church — to help her get by.

“Faith is a very important part,” she says. “If you don’t have your faith to hold you up and get you through, then it’s going to be such a more difficult battle.”

Her family and friends have also played a big part in keeping her strong. She and her husband, Bob, moved back to Jasper seven years ago after living in Indianapolis, northern Indiana, Ohio, and then 18 years in Kansas. Judy grew up in Jasper.

The couple has three kids, and their two daughters — Carolyn Willis of Winslow and Rachel Atwood of Jasper — moved back to the area when they did. The couple also has a son, Brian, who lives in Quincy, Illinois, and they have five grandchildren.

In May, Judy traveled to Cancer Treatment Centers of America Chicago for a five-year celebration of life. The weekend included a party and a dinner for Judy and hundreds of other cancer survivors and their family and friends.

“They treated us basically like royalty the whole weekend,” she says. “It was just really wonderful.”

She has advice for others diagnosed with cancer: Be strong. Stay positive. Be your own advocate. Fight for what you want.

“I’m stronger than I thought I could ever be,” she says.

Everybody has their own journey Four years ago, Tina Hunt’s life changed drastically.

It was close to Mother’s Day, and she had gotten a wellness test through her husband’s, Bob’s, job and was scheduled to get a colonoscopy. The doctor asked her about getting a mammogram.

“Something told me to get it, so I did,” Tina said. “And then I thought nothing of it.”

But then she got a call, saying she needed to get another mammogram. After the second mammogram, she was called in and shown the results.

She was told there was cancer in her breast.

“It looked like shattered glass,” Tina recalled, looking at the photo.

Tina got a second opinion from a health facility in Evansville, and was told the same thing. The surgeon told her the cancer was in the early stages. She got two biopsies to remove the cancer, and then started radiation.

Tina’s doctor asked her if cancer ran in her family, to which she said it did. “We had tons of it,” she said. Among the people she listed, she mentioned that her grandfather died of cancer, and later found out it was from pancreatic cancer.

That made the doctors run a gene test on Tina. The result was she had a mutation of the BRCA gene, which is hereditary.

BRCA, which stands for BReast CAncer, is a protein in the cells of breast and other tissue that repairs damaged DNA or destroys cells if DNA cannot be repaired.

If BRCA is damaged by a BRCA mutation, damaged DNA is not repaired properly and the risk for breast cancer increases.

“I wish they would do this test on every cancer patient,” Tina said of the expensive test. “Before anything happens, they should do that.” But testing depends on insurance.

Since Tina had someone in her family who died from a cancer that could be part of this gene, her grandfather, the test was done on her, she said.

Tina’s doctor then gave her some options: stop the radiation now and get a mastectomy, or keep trying with the radiation.

But he warned her continuous radiation changes the skin and makes it become hard.

“At the time, I did not heed that warning. Right then and there, I should have just stopped.”

She had some radiation treatments that were completed in November, and got the surgery the following spring. Then the reconstruction process was set to start.

“It was very painful,” she said. “I was in the hospital overnight, and then they sent me home.”

After the initial surgery, lots of people came in to help Tina, as her husband worked nights.

But Tina got an infection, which required another surgery. The original incisions had scarred, so that had to be removed along with the infection. And she was getting a strong antibiotic daily except for the weekends. People still came to her house to help, but the number had decreased.

And she got another infection, which required a third surgery. The doctors had no idea where the infections were coming from. And there were subsequent surgeries.

By the third surgery, the aftercare had drastically reduced. “My husband would leave my food and drinks before he went to work,” Tina recalled. A roll of gauze was soaked in solution and put into the breast cavity and held in place with a huge adhesive bandage.

The infections finally stopped. “But by this time, my skin was shriveled,” Tina said.

“When they [did the surgery and] finally put the implant in, they had to cut all that [skin] out.”

The whole ordeal took a huge toll on Tina.

“I was feeling so low. I asked God why am I here,” she said, her voice breaking. “I know there are people worse off than I am.

I should be appreciative. But I was so low.”

Tina had to get counseling, and she sees a neurologist because she has short-term memory loss.

“Sometimes things get scrambled up in my head,” she said. “And I’ll talk gibberish or say things backward.”

Also, her medicines take a toll on her body, including making her sleep a lot.

Despite all that, she reaches out to those she knows through the cancer journey to share what she knows. For her friend Connie Helming, who went through breast cancer treatment, Tina made a binder of what Helming would need to keep for doctors, space to keep personal information, like insurance info, and sheet sleeves for paperwork and medicine instructions.

“I try to help others as much as I can,” Tina said. “I wish I would’ve had someone come to me to tell me, ‘Hey, here’s the rundown. Here’s what you need.’”

She tries to spend as much time as she can with her family. Bob and Tina have two adult children: Amanda and James, one granddaughter and two more grandsons, twins, on the way. The Hunts also have a fur baby, a dog named Angel Baby.

“I check on people more,” Tina said, “I call or text people to say ‘I love you,’ or ‘I’m thinking of you,’ or ‘I’m praying for you.’”

She also goes out into nature as much as she can. “I hug trees. Call me crazy, but I do,” she said. “It’s for connection, to get that sense of calmness.”

Her spirituality also increased and she has been more active at her church, Victory Assembly of God. “I’ve gained understanding through this, and compassion,” Tina said. “We take so many things for granted. We all need to get entwined with the people around us. That’s what really matters.”

‘I’m not going to see my kids grow up.’

Deanne Seifert of Jasper found a quarter-sized lump in her breast in December 2006. In the back of her head, she knew what it was. But it wasn’t until the following summer that she’d go in and receive her diagnosis.

“He said that if I would have waited any longer … it was already growing blood vessels off of it,” Seifert recalled of her conversation with a doctor. “Once that does that, what happens is then it has a possibility of going across your body. Because once it gets in the blood, then it just takes off.”

Breast cancer runs in her family — her mother, Carolyn Hentrup, died from the affliction when Seifert was just 14 years old — and memories of the pain the disease and its treatments caused her mother were still in Seifert’s mind. She also feared for the lives of her two young boys, Jordan and Cody.

“When I first got that call, the first thing I thought of, ‘Oh, my God, I’m not gonna see my kids grow up,’” Seifert said. “I’m not gonna see them graduate.”

She’d pray to God, pleading and bartering with Him. She asked Him to get her through to their graduations.

Her fears stemming from her mother’s experience with cancer were quieted when she realized that medical advances have drastically changed the way doctors attack the disease. The tumor in her breast was removed, a double mastectomy was performed, and more than a decade later, Seifert lives with the cancer in remission.

Her religion and her loving husband, Allen, carried her through the bad days.

While she was recovering from treatments, Seifert’s neighbor and close friend, Reen Gutgsell — whose breast cancer journey is also featured in this special section — would come over and laugh with her while watching “I Love Lucy.”

When they look back on their own experiences, both Seifert and Gutgsell said they felt much better when friends and family came together to take their mind off their realities, as opposed to telling them how worried they were about them.

“I would rather somebody call me and say, ‘Hey, let’s go do something,’” Seifert said. “Or, joke around. You don’t want them to come over and cry. It’s not gonna do any good.”

Added Gutgsell: “‘You’re gonna beat this.

You’re gonna beat this.’ That’s what you want. I need that cheerleader.”

Seifert has since seen the graduation of one child — Jordan completed schooling at Jasper High School in 2015, and is currently serving in the U.S. Army — and Cody is slated to graduate in 2021.

‘I didn’t feel bad.

I didn’t hurt.’

Phyllis (Klem) Reynolds knows that if she hadn’t gone to the doctor for her annual checkup when she did in 2011, she wouldn’t be here today.

The St. Anthony woman’s doctor found a lump, ordered a biopsy and she was diagnosed with early Stage 3 breast cancer on Feb. 3 of that year.

“I’ll never forget, we got out to the car and we didn’t talk for the longest time,” Phyllis, 67, says of her and her husband Tom’s reaction to the news. “It was such a flood of shock. I didn’t feel bad. I didn’t hurt.

I had no signs whatsoever.”

She started treatment a week later in Indianapolis.

Her treatment included chemotherapy, followed by a lumpectomy and 33 radiation treatments.

She’s been cancer free ever since.

“When I got to the end of that, I almost didn’t know what to do,” Phyllis says. “That might sound funny, but it was like, ‘OK, I don’t have to worry about getting to the next step or getting through this or getting through that. It took me a while to kind of get my life back, so to speak. It [cancer] just consumed an entire year.”

Phyllis has been in remission for eight years. She still sees her oncologist once a year for a checkup.

“They told me that if I made it to the fiveyear mark, that I should be pretty good,” Phyllis says of being in remission.

She says her husband has been a big support for her throughout the journey.

“I cannot emphasize enough how helpful my husband was,” she says.

The couple has been married for 28 years ,and has three children — Jill Nixon of Atlanta, Rachael Wiseman of Bloomfield and Carl Polen of Atlanta.

They have three grandchildren, plus one on the way.

Phyllis says she was “extremely fortunate” with the flexibility of her job as an independent insurance agent out of her home.

She could schedule doctor appointments when needed and speak to clients over the phone when she didn’t feel well.

“The chemo made me feel like I had the worst flu ever,” she says, adding that the most difficult part of having cancer was having the patience to get through it.

She advises anyone who is diagnosed to find a support a system.

“If you don’t have a family or support system, find somebody,” she says. “It’s a hard thing to go through by yourself. I think a support network is the glue that holds you together.”

She also advises others to take advantage of preventive care and go to the doctor for annual checkups.

“Had I not gone at that specific time ... I would not be alive right now,” she says. “It was just fortune, I guess, that my appointment was when it was.”

page 4 ■ breast cancer awareness

the herald ■ Friday, October 4, 2019

breast cancer awareness | the basics

The Reach of Breast Cancer Did you know that breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women? Or that men can get breast cancer? Or that, when caught and treated early, many types of breast cancer have almost a 100% cure rate?

Breast cancer — which occurs when breast cells grow out of control, form a tumor and become malignant — affected more than 250,000 people in 2018, according to the National Cancer Institute. About 3.5 million women are living with breast cancer in the United States, and more than 12% of women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes.

The number of deaths from breast cancer is 20.6 per 100,000 women per year; the death rate among all cancers (men and women) is 163.5 per 100,000 people, so breast cancer has a much higher rate of survival. It typically responds very well to treatment; almost nine out of 10 women treated for breast cancer are alive five years after their diagnoses. The success of treatment is heavily dependent on how early in the cancer’s development it’s diagnosed; more than 60% of cases are found in the early stages of cancer, before it’s metastatized to other organs, the treatment of which

has a 99% five-year survival rate.

Breast cancer, like all types of cancer, doesn’t have a lot of easy answers about what causes it or what people can do to lessen their chances of developing a tumor. However, researchers have identified some contributing factors.

A family history of cancer is a big one. Women whose grandmothers, mothers or sisters had breast cancer should talk to their doctors about effective testing techniques at an earlier age than is normally recommend-

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page 6 ■ breast cancer awareness

the herald ■ Friday, October 4, 2019

breast cancer awareness | the basics

What to Watch For

Since early diagnosis plays such an outsized role in successfully treating breast cancer, people should know what signs to look for and what the screening process will be like when you go to the doctor.

can help her determine if this is a tumor or a cyst or just a change in fatty breast tissue.

Another screening is a mammogram, which is an X-ray that can find tumors that aren’t felt with physical exams. These are recommended for all women 40 years old and older, but women who are at higher risk may start them earlier. In addition to tumors, mammograms can find small calcium deposits that are a sign of breast cancer.

Treatment Symptoms According to the American Cancer Society, the most commoœn symptom of breast cancer is a new lump or mass in the breast that wasn’t previously there. A mass that is painless and hard and has irregular edges is more likely to be cancer, but malignant tumors can be soft, tender, round or painful. When you find a new lump, go to the doctor. This means women need to know what their breasts look and feel like, so regular self-exams are beneficial.

Other possible symptoms include swelling of the breast, skin dimpling or irritation, breast pain, nipple retraction, pain or discharge or the skin of the breast or nipple turning red, scaly or thick. Breast cancer also can manifest in swollen nodes in the armpit or around the collarbone.

Screenings During your annual physical, your doctor will examine your breasts and lymph nodes for changes. This will typically be the first step even when you go in knowing something has changed. Breast tissue can change with time; women develop cysts, and menstruation and menopause can affect tissue as well. Your doctor also

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will ask you about your family history with all types of cancer, but particularly breast, uterine and ovarian cancers. Based on the exam and discussion, she may decide further testing, such as an ultrasound, is needed.

In an ultrasound, the doctor is able to isolate the affected area and get a visual of sorts of the lump; its size, shape, density and other factors

For the most part, breast cancer is quite treatable. Much of its treatability depends on what stage the cancer is when diagnosed — the earlier, the better.

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the herald ■ Friday, October 4, 2019

breast cancer awareness ■ page 7

breast cancer awareness | educate yourself

Questions to Ask

Although you have a cancer treatment team and you’ll have opportunities to ask questions at subsequent appointments, it can be helpful to have an idea of what you need to know as you go to follow-up appointments and meet other care providers.

Don’t be afraid to ask your doctor about their experience treating this type, getting a second opinion and any detail you don’t understand. This can help you not only get the information you need but also take some measure of control over your life during a difficult time. The American Cancer Society has lists of questions to help you.

When You’re Diagnosed • How big is the cancer? Where exactly is the tumor?

• Has it spread to lymph nodes or other organs?

• What stage is it? What does that mean?

• Who else will be on my treat-

ment doesn’t work?

• How will we know if the treatment is working?

• Are there ways to manage side effects?

• What lifestyle changes should I make during treatment — a different diet or exercise regimen, for example?

• If I experience depression or anxiety, what resources are available?

Surgery ment team?

• How much will this cost?

What does my insurance cover?

Is there a patient advocate who can help me through the financial side of this?

Before and During Treatment • What are my options for treatment? What are the positives and negatives of each?

• How long should I expect treatment to last?

• What side effects will I experience?

• What treatment do you recommend/what regimen would you do if you were diagnosed with this type of cancer?

• Are clinical trials an option?

Should I look at that?

• Will I lose my hair? How will treatment affect my daily life?

• What happens if this treat-

• What type of surgery is best for me?

• Should I consider a full mastectomy, even though the cancer hasn’t spread?

• How long will recovery take?

How much of that will be in the hospital versus at home?

• What will happen during recovery? Will I have stitches or staples, will there be a drain coming out of the site?

• What are my options for breast reconstruction? What are the risks?

In the battle against breast cancer,early detection is a w om an’s m ost pow erfulw eapon!

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page 8 ■ breast cancer awareness

the herald ■ Friday, October 4, 2019

breast cancer awareness | research

Breakthroughs

The National Cancer Institute shared some of the latest breakthroughs in breast cancer research, including clinical research that could lead to improved care at every stage of cancer treatment. Clinical trials are often available for prevention, screening and treatment; ask your doctor for options.

Detecting Cancer Breast cancer already is one of the easiest-to-find cancers; mammograms and other imaging tools are effective and widely used in identifying and diagnosing tumors. Scientists are looking for ways to enhance the current options available for breast cancer screening, such as 3D mammography, a procedure that takes pictures from a variety of angles around the breast and then builds a 3D-like image. Assessment tools must be measured in terms of their effectiveness not only in finding malignant tumors but in not creating false positives, i.e. telling a

the treatment of hormone receptor-positive advanced breast cancer that have been shown to prolong the time until chemo is needed, possibly extend survival and prevent relapse. In HER2positive breast cancer (HER2 is a protein; elevated levels are found in some women with breast cancer), the FDA has approved a number of therapies that show positive effects in treating this type of cancer, preventing a relapse or keeping the disease from spreading to the brain.

woman she has cancer when she doesn’t. This procedure is being tested for that effectiveness.

Treatment Breast cancer can be divided into subgroups that affect the way doctors treat them, using specific hormone therapies to target cells. A study on patients

with an estrogen receptor cancer found a test that looks at certain genes can help some women safely avoid chemo. The Food and Drug Administration has approved several breast cancer treatments that target specific cell-growth molecules, and more of these treatments are being developed.

There have been advances in

Other Research Researchers also are looking at the effectiveness of screening across communities, why black women are more likely to be diagnosed with aggressive forms of breast cancer and are more likely to die of breast cancer than white women as well as issues related to breast cancer survivors, including their continued physical and mental health, sleep disturbances, financial impacts and more.

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