Breast Cancer's Tomorrow

Imagine a scientific breakthrough that would remove the earth-shattering fear from the diagnosis of breast cancer. Could that actually happen? What would that be?

The non-profit organization Friends for an Earlier Breast Cancer Test sees the opportunity to support research for finding a new, biological test to detect breast cancer earlier as a major point for changing the picture of breast cancer. Considering the fact that most breast cancer is in the body five to eight years before it can even be imaged, and this is commonly thought to be “early,” there is a major window of opportunity for intercepting this disease far earlier.

What would be one of the first questions that you would ask when one of your very best friends tells you that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer: “Did they find it early? Is it small?” The further question that we all need to answer now—not in the midst of terror—is, “How early is early enough?”

We have our chance right now to answer that question. As one researcher has reflected, “We are in a Scientific Renaissance.” Reflect on the advances of science and technology in the last ten years and how disciplines are coming together. Never before have we been able to apply multiple disciplines, such as mathematics, to a biological problem. Heretofore, biological problems were only viewed as solvable in the realm of biology. Never before has any generation had the opportunity to make such an impact on science. Today, the cancer research that has been proceeding over the past 35 years is being exponentially accelerated by computer technology. Yes, in fact, we are in a “Scientific Renaissance,” and importantly and significantly, it is our own responsibility to respond to this opportunity.

Envision this: once we secure a biological test for detecting breast cancer, the impact of the damage to the body and long-term health consequences of the disease will be minimized and treatment will begin far earlier. Pharmaceutical companies, already hard at work developing treatments for breast cancer and its effects, will have a definitive direction in which to channel the work that is already in progress. Statistics will no longer be about survival, but about treating a disease that could be chronic or just a one-time experience. In either case, breast cancer would no longer be the terrorist that it is. At this point, we don’t know what causes breast cancer and we don’t know how to cure it. We do know that detection is our key to survival. Technology needs our help. It is not the job of “somebody ”—it is the job for all of us.

As a survivor, I know the fear that accompanies this devastating disease. Perhaps if I did not work with this every day, I could repress the fear. However, I recognize it on a daily basis. Every morning when I look in the mirror I am reminded of my own experience and I must steel myself against that reality. I hear it in voices of newly diagnosed women. I see it in the eyes of young women who are wondering if they are going to be alive to raise their families. I feel the tension through hugs of women who are facing surgery. The fear is ever present, yet we can help take it away. It is not an option of something we might consider supporting. It is an obligation.