Men can also get breast cancer.

So why not talk about it?

Every year in Israel between 50 and 70 men are diagnosed with breast cancer, and beyond the fear and distress that accompanies a diagnosis of any type of cancer, they also face great embarrassment and loneliness.

Naama Levin Dagan explains why it is so important to increase awareness of breast cancer in men

Dr. Naama Levin Dagan

10/20/2022

Thursday, October 20, 2022, 12:00 Updated: 12:43

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October is International Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Billboards and campaigns in all media urge women to go get tested and pay attention to suspicious signs, because early detection saves lives.

October is a pink month, and not by chance - breast cancer is the most common malignant disease among women, it affects an organ that is associated with women and is seen as a "women's" disease, but men can also get it.

Since many do not know this important detail, there is room for increasing awareness of the issue, and the month of October is a great opportunity to do so.

For the past 8 years I have been the social worker at the Breast Health Center at the Ichilov Hospital.

Every day I accompany many women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, but once in a while I also meet a man who has been diagnosed with the disease.

The things I will bring are based on my meeting with men in the hospital and on the findings of the doctoral thesis I wrote in which I investigated the experience of men diagnosed with breast cancer in Israel.

Each year in Israel between 50 and 70 men are diagnosed with breast cancer, and the incidence of the disease is 1 to 1.5 percent of all breast cancer cases.

A man with breast cancer is treated in clinics that specialize in the treatment of the disease, and in women.

Imagine what it feels like for a man who has been diagnosed with cancer, a complex struggle regardless of the gender identity of the disease, and who has to sit surrounded by women while waiting for a mammogram or a breast surgeon.

Many men describe waiting next to women and the stares directed at them as causing discomfort and embarrassment.

In addition, the information leaflets dealing with the disease are intended for women, are written in female language and deal with issues that concern women such as fitting a bra after surgery - also information that is not relevant and not adapted to a man's needs, but also reinforces the experience of not belonging to the place.

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The men I met and interviewed were satisfied with the medical care they received.

Along with the satisfaction, some of them met secretaries/technicians/pharmacists along the way who were surprised that men also get the disease, or medical staff members they met at the beginning of the journey who emphasized to them how rare the disease is or that they have no experience treating men.

These situations create an experience of difference, otherness, loneliness and embarrassment among the men diagnosed with the disease.

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An experience of difference, otherness, loneliness and embarrassment.

A man holds a breast cancer awareness ribbon (Photo: ShutterStock)

The relatively low incidence of the disease in men is also reflected in the small amount of clinical research on the subject, so the treatment is mainly based on the existing research dealing with the disease and its treatment among women.

One of the main differences between the treatment approach in men and women is the tendency to perform more mastectomy surgeries in men than breast conserving surgeries.

The main reason for this is the paucity of breast tissue in men which does not always allow the breast to be preserved.

At the same time, even when there is a surgical option to preserve the breast, the tendency is to perform a mastectomy.

The reason for this is related to a common perception that a man's breast has no functional or emotional meaning for a man.

For the same reason, nipple reconstruction procedures are also less acceptable when the patient is a man.

However, the research literature shows that one of the main things that bothers men who have had the disease (and, as mentioned, underwent multiple operations for a mastectomy) is the appearance of the operated chest, which is characterized by a scar, the absence of a nipple and asymmetry, and many men hide their chests to avoid revealing the fact that they have breast cancer.

They will choose to go with a shirt in the sea or pool, places where it is common for men to go bare-chested, or they will be preoccupied with the way the shirt they are wearing hides well the asymmetry created in the chest.

It is important that the medical teams are aware of this difficulty of the male patients, recognize it and offer them an appropriate response, as is offered to women.

In the pink month of October dedicated to raising awareness of breast cancer, we should also talk about breast cancer in men.

Raising public awareness that men can also get the disease, and the signs to pay attention to are important - because early detection can also save men's lives.

But raising awareness and expanding the public discourse on the subject has an additional role in saving lives - in their power to bring about a change in the experience of the men diagnosed with the disease and to obscure the embarrassment and loneliness that some feel, but should not feel.

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• breast cancer

• Mammography

• men