Our Chicago: Breast Cancer Awareness Month
CHICAGO (WLS) -- Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women here in the U.S., second only to skin cancers.
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For 2025, the American Cancer Society estimates that nearly 317,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed; about 42,170 women will die.
Overall, there is a one in eight chance that a woman will develop breast cancer.
The American Cancer Society reports that breast cancer death rates have decreased 43% since 1989.
Dr. Nan Chen, a hematologist and oncologist at UChicago Medicine, is a spokesperson for the American Cancer Society.
She explained that there are several reasons why death rates have fallen.
"The earlier we find a breast cancer, the more likely a patient is to survive, the more likely that we can offer less aggressive treatments," Dr. Chen explained. "We have new treatments that are also allowing patients to live longer and to live healthier lives."
She added that there are now targeted therapies: "some of our cancers have specific targets and we have therapies that can go after them. Doing these tests mean that you and your oncologist have to agree that this is the right decision for you and then we have to find the right medicine for you."
Lizzy Freier is a breast cancer survivor and a volunteer with the American Cancer Society.
She was diagnosed last year, just four days before her 36th birthday.
"I had started to notice that one of my nipples was slightly inverting. It was odd enough for me to go see my OB/GYN and ask about it. By no means did I feel any lumps in either side. And it was nothing that I was particularly concerned about, but she was concerned enough to send me to my first-ever and last-ever mammogram," Freier said. "It was completely shocking to me at the time. They did a biopsy later that day and that confirmed that I had invasive ductal carcinoma in both breasts."
She said her grandmother on her mother's side had breast cancer, but no one else in her family had and she did genetic testing and it was negative.
Freier underwent a double mastectomy. Fortunately, her cancer was not particularly aggressive.
She's now on a course of hormone treatment that she'll be on for the next five to ten years.
For more information on fundraising and awareness walks in Chicago, the suburbs and Northwest Indiana, click here.
