Men Not Exempt From Breast Cancer

Allen Wilson doesn’t mind being a poster child for a pink cause.

“Exploit me,” he said.

Wilson was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003 when he was 51. Now he’s using his experience to save other grandfathers, fathers, sons, brothers and uncles.

Wilson, of Houston, noticed a lump under his nipple, but he ignored it until the day he collided with one of his sons while playing basketball. He did some research and decided he needed to see his doctor.

“Two days later, I had a mammogram. It’s amazing what those technicians can do with so little tissue to work with,” he said.

Wilson had a mastectomy and chemotherapy. His hair was falling out, so his two sons helped give him a Mohawk and paint half red and half green for a family Christmas card.

Since then, Wilson, who is the 2011 chairman for the Houston Komen Race for the Cure®, has personally raised more than $68,000 for the foundation. A runner, a skydiver and a mountain climber, Wilson loves to leave pink ribbons on mountain summits—like Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Everest.

“I have had two surgeries, two chemos and one radiation, and I am surviving just fine,” he said. Some of his treatments were rough, and the side effects weren’t fun. “But we got through it.”

Elaine Bowser, a nurse navigator with breast center, said she is working with four male breast cancer patients.

The disease, she said, is more common in men than people think. An average of one in 100 are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer, compared to one in eight women.

"It's not just a female disease," Bowser said. "Men just don't think about it. While women undergo screening tests for it, men are usually not diagnosed until they actually feel a lump."

Bowser said she urges men to conduct self-breast exams on themselves on a regular basis, just like women. She added that the treatment options, from surgery to chemotherapy, are the same for men as women.

"Most men are just so surprised when they get the diagnosis," she said. "It's just not well known that men can get breast cancer too."

Bowser said that it is so important to stress during Breast Cancer Awareness month the dangers of the disease as it pertains to men.

Some argue the survival rate for men is not as good as it is for women because men tend to ignore symptoms for longer, but the American Cancer Society reports recent studies have shown some improvement. Men and women who are diagnosed at the same stages have similar outlooks.

This year, the ACS estimates 2,140 new cases of invasive breast cancer in men in this country. They estimate 450 men will die. The average age of diagnosis is 68. One of five of those diagnosed will have a close relative with the disease.

There is no known cause, although genetics, obesity and excessive alcohol consumption may contribute.