This is what I wrote I missed the broadcast item but have just read the website. I am VERY disappointed to see the misleading statistics about 5 year survival being trotted out yet again! Yes, 80% (or even 90%) of those diagnosed with breast cancer today will probably be alive 5 years after diagnosis, but that doesn\'t mean that they will be free of cancer. Those with Grade 3 tumours and lymph node involvement certainly do NOT have a 90% chance of being disease-free in 5 years time.
I was diagnosed 7 years with a small Grade 1 cancer with no node involvement. Last summer I found another lump in the same breast under the old lymph node scar and had a mastectomy in October. The cells which grew into this tumour almost certainly came from my first breast cancer, which means that at the 5 year mark I was alive, but was definitely not free of breast cancer.
Breast cancer is not at present curable, in the sense that any of us can know that it won\'t come back. My surgeon told me that she wishes that she could be like her colleagues in other cancer fields and tell her patients that if it hasn\'t come back after 5 years they are cured. Unfortunately breast cancer isn\'t like that and can come back 10, 20, 30 or even 40 years after first diagnosis, sadly very often with fatal results.
The current statistics for breast cancer tell us that about 41,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer each year and at the same time about 12,500 die each year of this dreadful disease. By my reckoning that means that over 30% of people diagnosed with breast cancer die of the disease at present. Thankfully there have been many advances in treatment in recent years, but none of them is a certain cure and many only serve to prolong life or slow down recurrence.
Breast cancer is NOT a good cancer to get - no cancer is ever good and it certainly isn\'t trendy, unless by that is meant that it is becoming more and more common, with over 8000 women under 50 being diagnosed every year.
Of course I hope and pray that Kerry Robertson\'s treatment will be successful and that she will be among those whose cancer does not recur, but sadly, with a Grade 3 tumour and lymph node involvement, she has a more than average chance of recurrence.
Glib and uninformed comments such as those quoted on the website do no-one any favours and unfairly minimise the suffering of the tens of thousands of women (and some men) who have to cope with this devastating disease.
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