Breast Cancer in Men Often Ignored

Editor's Note: In honor of October being breast cancer awareness month, click on the Awareness link above for Hermosa Beach Patch coverage on how the community is addressing this important topic.

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."

Richard Roundtree, an actor best known as John Shaft in "Shaft," was 51 when he was diagnosed with breast cancer after feeling a lump while in the shower in 1993.

Roundtree initially thought the doctor was questioning his manhood, but he has grown to be comfortable as a spokesman for the cause. A woman on an airplane once thanked him for saving her husband’s life by inspiring him to get checked out by a doctor.

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 society estimates 2,140 new cases of invasive breast cancer in men in this country. They estimate 450 men will die.

Here in California, roughly 130 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year and about 30 die of the disease annually, according to the California Cancer Registry.

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

Men and women have similar treatments including surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation and targeted therapies.

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