By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
The women who have their breast health check-ups at Hadassah Medical Center’s new Marlene Greenebaum Multidisciplinary Breast Center at Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem campus won’t only have the convenience of some of Israel’s best medical professionals, from oncologists to plastic surgeons, in one clinic, they will also have the peace of mind that comes from promising recent statistics: 90 percent of women diagnosed early will most likely survive.
The center is a one-stop shop where both men and women — although the incidence of male breast cancer is rare — can seamlessly visit with specialists, often during the same appointment, alleviating the needless stress of waiting days for follow-up procedures and running from one appointment to another.
“We try to give the woman the best service possible to reduce her stress as much as we can,” Dr. Einat Carmon, a surgeon in the department of surgery at the Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem told JTNews. “Having everything done at the same place is much more convenient for the woman.”
Carmon visited Seattle earlier this month for a Hadassah panel on breast cancer. A specialist in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, the 36-year-old surgeon and soon-to-be mother of two spoke to a group of 70 women at Seattle Chapter Hadassah’s campaign kickoff for the women’s Zionist organization’s fall fundraising event, Breast Cancer Exposed!
The gala fundraising event at Seattle’s Fairmont Olympic Hotel on September 21, 2011, is designed to raise awareness of prevention strategies and to raise money to find a cure.
Speakers at the event include Breast Cancer Exposed! honorary chair Mary Alhadeff, a Seattle native who survived a rare form of breast cancer as a young mother of twins and a new baby, and the gala’s keynote speaker, Jessica Queller, writer and producer for the TV show “Gossip Girl.” Queller is the author of the memoir Pretty is What Changes: Impossible Choices, the Breast Cancer Gene, and How I Defied My Destiny. She will tell her story of how a single 30-something woman enjoying her life in Hollywood writing for hit shows that included “Felicity,” and “Gilmore Girls” coped with her breast cancer diagnosis.
“We hope to have a lot of survivors in the room,” said Naomi Newman, marketing chair for the event. “Our goal is to raise $200,000 for the center. We are working on corporate sponsorship to offset the cost of the event so that the lion’s share will go toward the research.”
Although breast cancer is at epidemic proportions around the world and at a national high in the Seattle-Puget Sound region, all women, and specifically, Eastern European Jewish women, should investigate the incidence of breast cancer in their family as a first line of defense, said Carmon.
She advised women to first find out if they have a family history of the breast cancer gene’s two genetic mutations, BRCA1 and BRCA2, because they correlate with a significantly higher incidence of developing the disease.
“This is an extremely common disease that will affect a lot of women,” Carmon said. “About 90 percent of cases are not hereditary, so every woman is at risk. The non-BRCA [mutation] carrier Jewish woman has to be screened just as often as the woman who is not Jewish.”
Between 20 and 50 percent of BRCA carriers will never get the disease, Carmon said. Ashkenazi women with no history of breast cancer in their families have a one in 10 incidence of developing breast cancer.
“In the general population, one in eight women, or 12 percent, has a lifetime risk of getting breast cancer,” continued Carmon. “However, in the Ashkenazi Jewish population, one out of 40, or 2.5 percent of people are carriers of the BRCA mutations. For them, there is a 50 to 80 percent chance of getting breast cancer. They have a much higher risk of being a BRCA [mutation] carrier compared to the general population and need more close surveillance or preventive measures.”
Recently, Hadassah researchers found two additional BRCA mutations in the Sephardic population, one in BRCA1 and one in BRCA2, but, she added, they are not nearly as prevalent as the Ashkenazi BRCA mutations.
In addition, about 10 to 15 women out of 100 who have a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation will develop ovarian cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control, but for women who have both mutations, the risk for early breast cancer and ovarian cancer is greatly increased.
Other less-well-known risk factors for developing breast cancer include having children at the age of 30 or later, which Carmon said nearly doubles the risk of developing breast cancer when compared to the incidence of cancer found in women who had their first child when they were 18.
Similarly, there is no exact statistic for the incidence of developing breast cancer in women who haven’t had any children, but they have an even higher risk, said Carmon.
Hadassah researchers want women to consider their own risk factors and choose the best diagnostic approaches for themselves. They may include breast self-exam, digital mammography, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging or MRIs, genetic testing, lumpectomies, mastectomies, radiation, chemotherapy, and drugs.
According to Cindy Levy, one of three Seattle Chapter Hadassah co-chairs for the Breast Cancer Exposed! event who recently returned from the new center in Jerusalem, a diagnostic thermal-imaging tool under development there has a 92 percent detection rate. In the procedure, she said, doctors lower the temperature of an exam room and the patient’s temperature. Using an infrared heat-sensitive camera, doctors are able to visibly isolate the blood vessels of a tumor.
“When you walk in, it’s like you entered into a quiet, calm, and supportive place,” Levy said. “Patients say they feel like they are listened to from the very beginning. You have a lot of dignity and you don’t have to go from floor to floor in a nightgown.”