The fight never stops to find out why we lose so many loved ones to cancer
KYLIE MINOGUE’S diagnosis of breast cancer at just 36, and more recently the tragic death of Sarah Harding from the disease at the age of 39, have highlighted a growing toll on younger women, and what might be driving it. . .
May 31, 2005
WHEN Kylie Minogue (pictured) announced she had breast cancer two weeks ago, the news was particularly shocking because of her age. At just 36 and the picture of health, she seemed terribly unlucky to have an illness that normally hits women over 50.
But Kylie’s case is not an aberration. Figures revealed last week showed that the number of under-40s with breast cancer has increased by more than 50 per cent in just one generation.
Of the women diagnosed with the disease each year, many are in their 20s and 30s. Although still a minority, it is a sizeable one and, when compared with figures for 1975 — when 1,266 under40s were diagnosed — it raises questions as to why modern women seem to be at a greater risk of breast cancer than their mothers were.
Hisham Hamed, a consultant breast surgeon, says the statistics cannot be explained simply by an increased awareness of the disease.
He says: ‘That means more young women will come to a clinic and be checked earlier, so their chances of survival are much better — but it does not increase the number of young women getting breast cancer.’ ‘In older women, however, screening has meant that we are now detecting cancers before they are visible: cancers that might not have been diagnosed 30 years ago.’ For many years, it seemed those most at risk of contracting the disease under 50 had a family history of it. But statistics show that only 5 to 10 per cent of such cases are likely to be caused by a hereditary link. Mr Hamed says: ‘I have had patients as young as 18. I treated one woman who was 21 and died at 23, and this week I have seen a 28-year-old with breast cancer who is 24 weeks pregnant. None had a family history of the disease.’
He says that, although it is impossible to make definite causal links between lifestyle and breast cancer, women may now be ‘paying the price for our modern life’.
He cites the ‘style of life, oral contraception, alcohol consumption and delaying pregnancy’ as factors that could be increasing young women’s risk of the disease. Carcinogens and toxins in the environment may also play a part.
breastcancerireland.com
FIGHT TO STOP TEENAGE CANCER June 26, 2018
IN THIS hard-hitting report, CAROLINE SCOTT examined why cancer drugs used for adults are not used to treat teen cancers as families questioned whether pharmaceutical companies are to blame for not allowing young people to take part in new trials. WHEN Debbie Binner’s sporty 14-year-old daughter, Chloe, complained of pains in her right leg, she thought the problem might be muscular.
The family GP believed it could be a torn muscle, says Debbie, 52, a journalist and author. But when, a couple of months later, Chloe started to limp, the GP referred her to hospital for an MRI scan. Not for a moment did Debbie think her dance-mad teenager might have cancer.
‘After Chloe had her scan, the surgeon explained that Chloe had a tumour in her pelvis, and that the cancer had spread to her lungs,’ says Debbie.
‘He made it very clear that she might not live.’ Chloe’s diagnosis was the start of an ordeal which revealed the lack of treatments for children with cancer, and culminated in her dying before she was eligible to try a drug which might have given her more time. Chloe had Ewing sarcoma, a rare bone cancer which mainly affects children and young people. The cancer was so advanced at diagnosis that Chloe had a 20 per cent chance of survival. ‘She never once broke down or asked: “Why me?”’ says Debbie. ‘We held on to hope. I was determined to find out everything about her disease and make sure Chloe was one of the 20 per cent.’
BUT Debbie discovered there had been no new treatments for Ewing sarcoma for 40 years. When Chloe’s tumours stopped responding to chemotherapy, Debbie discovered a clinical trial of a drug called talazoparib, which stops damaged cells from repairing themselves.
It was being trialled for cancers with similar genetic alterations, including Ewing sarcoma. Debbie contacted the Institute of Cancer Research to enrol Chloe on the trial.
But as the lower age limit was 18, and Chloe was then 17, she was not allowed to take part.
Chloe was accepted on the trial when she turned 18, but was too ill to benefit. She died two weeks after her 18th birthday.
Cancer doctors say nowhere near enough cancer medicines are being trialled or licensed for use in children. According to Accelerate, a platform that aims to improve early access to drugs, fewer than 10 per cent of children in relapse with a terminal cancer have access to experimental drugs.
Dr Lynley Marshall, a consultant in paediatric and adolescent oncology drug development says: ‘There is nothing in the regulations to say a young person can’t be included, but historically, that’s just the way the boundaries have been set.’
SO, IT’S official: brights are back, as decreed by the Pantone Color Institute, the global authority on such matters. This season, it claims, will be awash with a punchy palette of grassy greens, vivid oranges, cobalt blues, sunshine yellows and statement reds. A feel-good rainbow of powerful shades, setting a defiantly positive mood for our return to normal life.
Each season, Pantone’s ‘colour consultants’ create the Fashion Colour Trend Report, predicting the shades that will dominate at London Fashion Week. In February, it anticipated that ‘a range of heartening hues’ would dominate in autumn and winter.
Looking at the shops, it was spot on. And it makes sense: after so much doom and gloom, we’re being drawn to more celebratory shades. No more sombre and sensible neutrals. We want to feel reinvigorated.
You don’t have to do it top-to-toe. If you prefer, add a flash of vivid orange with a crossbody bag, or swap navy for a splash of striking cobalt. Colourful, confident clothes make us feel more colourful and confident. So let’s bring on bold, bright colour.