Posted March 4, 2013
In a room with a half-dozen women who fought breast cancer at an early age, the dark turn in Rhonda Fleischauer’s story brings a stunned silence.
She was first diagnosed with breast cancer at age 38 when she was pregnant with her son, Trevor, now 7 years old. Exactly five years after her first bout, the cancer reappeared in a different part of her body.
“It came back bone cancer,” she said, barely holding back a sob. “So now it is in my spine.”
In women younger than 40, the incidence of advanced breast cancer is increasing and appears to be accelerating, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers looked at cancer incidence data from 1976 through 2009 and found a trend toward increasing advanced breast cancer in patients ages 25 through 39. The incidence of advanced breast cancer in that age group was 1.53 per 100,000 people in 1976 and 2.9 in 2009. The increase from year to year became larger from 2000 to 2009.
There was no similar increase for other age groups or earlier stages of breast cancer, the study found.
The increase is greatest among women with estrogen-sensitive cancers, the study found, but the study does not identify a potential cause. A 2007 study among women in Switzerland found an increase in women ages 25-39 for all breast cancers but also did not point to a cause.
“To make a long story short, we couldn’t find a single explanation for the trend,” said Dr. Rebecca H. John
