Contact: Renatt Brodsky
Mount Sinai Press Office
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October Is Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Mount Sinai Experts Offer Tips on Early Detection, Screening, Understanding Risk and Personalized Treatment Options
Newswise — (NEW YORK – September 20, 2017) – One in eight women in the United States has a chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in her life, and an estimated 230,000 women will develop breast cancer this year. However, nearly 90 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer survive for at least five years, which is why early detection, screening, and personalized treatments matter when it comes to saving lives.
Mount Sinai experts are available during October’s Breast Cancer Awareness month to offer tips on early detection, screening, and new treatments. Patients are also available for interview.
Experts Available for Interview
- Susan K. Boolbol, MD, Chief of Breast Surgery, Mount Sinai Downtown-Chelsea Center
- Paula Klein, MD, Director, Cancer Clinical Trials, Mount Sinai Downtown-Chelsea Center
- Laurie Margolies, MD, FACR, Chief of Breast Imaging, Mount Sinai Health System
- Elisa Port, MD, Director, The Dubin Breast Center, The Mount Sinai Hospital
Tips for Breast Cancer Prevention
- Limit alcohol and don’t smoke. The more alcohol you drink, the greater your risk of developing breast cancer. Limit yourself to no more than one drink a day. Some studies link smoking to increased risks of developing breast cancer.
- Control your weight. Being overweight or obese increases the risk of breast cancer. This is especially true if obesity occurs later in life, particularly after menopause.
- Be physically active. Physical activity can help you maintain a healthy weight, which, in turn, helps prevent breast cancer. The recommended activity is 150 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity weekly.
- Limit dose and duration of hormone therapy. Combination hormone therapy that contains both estrogen and progesterone and is given to women after menopause should be avoided.
Understanding Risk and Options
- Know Your Genes and Family History: Five to 10 percent of breast cancers are linked to gene mutations (commonly in BRCA1 and BRCA2) and 15 percent of women who get breast cancer have a family member with the disease.
- More Treatment Isn’t Always Better: The average breast cancer patient who has a bilateral mastectomy will have no better survival than the average patient who spares the healthy breast by choosing lumpectomy plus radiation.
- Don’t overestimate risk: When a woman has breast cancer on one side, breast cancercan spread to other parts of the body, but only very rarely does it spread to the other breast.
New FDA-Approved Treatment Available For Hair Loss
Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS) is offering breast cancer patients the DigniCap® scalp cooling system, which was cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to effectively reduce the likelihood of chemotherapy-induced hair loss in women with solid tumor cancers at The Dubin Breast Center and Mount Sinai Downtown-Chelsea Center. The DigniCap system is the first and only scalp-cooling device to complete FDA clinical trials in the United States, where 7 out of 10 patients with early-stage breast cancer kept at least 50 percent of their hair.
Breast Cancer Vaccine Trial
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is offering breast cancer patients with HER2 negative breast cancers the chance to participate in a cutting-edge vaccine trial in combination with Herceptin to determine if it can prevent breast cancer recurrence; to look at the immune system's response to the vaccine; and to collect information on the vaccine in safety and dosing. For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org/patient-care/service-areas/cancer/cancer-services/dubin-breast-center/breast-cancer-research/clinical-trials.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
The Mount Sinai Health System is New York City’s largest integrated delivery system encompassing seven hospital campuses, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region. Mount Sinai’s vision is to produce the safest care, the highest quality, the highest satisfaction, the best access and the best value of any health system in the nation. The System includes approximately 7,100 primary and specialty care physicians; 10 joint-venture ambulatory surgery centers; more than 140 ambulatory practices throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and 31 affiliated community health centers. Physicians are affiliated with the renowned Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, which is ranked among the highest in the nation in National Institutes of Health funding per investigator. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 18 on U.S. News & World Report’s “Honor Roll” of top U.S. hospitals; it is one of the nation’s top 20 hospitals in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Geriatrics, Nephrology, and Neurology/Neurosurgery, and in the top 50 in four other specialties in the 2017-2018 “Best Hospitals” issue. Mount Sinai’s Kravis Children’s Hospital also is ranked in six out of ten pediatric specialties by U.S. News & World Report. The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked 12th nationally for Ophthalmology and 50th for Ear, Nose, and Throat, while Mount Sinai Beth Israel, Mount Sinai St. Luke’s and Mount Sinai West are ranked regionally. For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org/, or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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