Hard-to-detect form accounts for 10-15% of breast cancer
Women often hear that they should check their breasts for lumps and have regular mammograms. But few are aware there is a form of breast cancer that doesn't form a lump and is difficult to detect on scans. Researchers and patients say women need to be better informed about how to look out for it.
Transcript
00:00 Having lost her mum to breast cancer, Becky Collins is hyper-vigilant about the disease.
00:07 I just felt a change in my left breast. It didn't feel like a lump, it felt like a thickening.
00:14 The mother of two's mammogram and ultrasound both came back clear.
00:18 Five months later, an MRI picked up stage 3 breast cancer.
00:23 I was really angry at the radiologists, to be honest, that they could miss this.
00:29 I now know it is incredibly difficult to detect.
00:32 80 to 85 per cent of breast cancers grow as a lump.
00:36 10 to 15 per cent are a special type called lobular breast cancer that behaves quite differently.
00:43 The special feature is the pattern of growth, which is really single file cells spreading through the tissue.
00:51 That makes it difficult to spot on standard images.
00:55 If we turn on the contrast, there's this obvious tumour here.
00:59 But women can consider getting contrast-enhanced mammograms or MRIs.
01:05 I was diagnosed with lobular cancer three and a half years ago,
01:08 and so as part of my regular check-ups I get an abbreviated MRI every two years.
01:14 But that's not available to everyone.
01:16 The government only reimburses for a very sub-select group of people.
01:21 But self-checks are free, so all women should watch for changes in the size, shape or feel of their breasts.
01:29 Feel them every single day. That's how you will notice the change.
01:32 As many as 3,000 Australians are diagnosed with lobular cancer every year,
01:37 and yet only one lobular cancer research project has ever sought and received government funding.
01:44 We should have targeted therapies for lobular breast cancer patients,
01:47 because these tumours are inherently different.
01:50 A call for more research into lobular cancer, and a need for more awareness of the disease.
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