Do This Now to Find the Causes of Breast Cancer

Do this NOW to find the cause of breast cancer: Go to http://www.Healthofwomenstudy.org.

In a new effort to identify potential causes and what Dr. Susan Love calls collateral damage from breast cancer treatment, a study called the Health of Women (HOW) asks for information about women’s health both before and after diagnosis.

We all say we want to find the cause of cancer, and this is something you can do personally. Whether you have had breast cancer or not, sign up and get your friends to sign up. They need healthy women and men who have never had breast cancer in addition to those who have. The more who sign up, the faster we’ll be able to find the cause of breast cancer.

Let’s make our goal 813 women and men a day, the number who will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Already, some 50,000 women and men have signed up for the study, which is being conducted in partnership with an epidemiologist at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center.

I can remember asking my oncologist why no one asked me lifestyle questions to try and figure out why I got breast cancer. His answer, “It’s easier to find the cure than the cause.”

Well, we know how that’s going. With today’s technology, all we need are the numbers and we can find out what causes breast cancer — and maybe all cancers.

Send this out on your Facebook page, tweet it. Let’s do it.

I heard Susan Love speak to the Alamo Breast Cancer Foundation advocates on the first night of their five-day marathon to learn about breast cancer at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. This is the 37^th annual symposium, and it brings thousands of doctors from around the world to hear about the latest research. The advocates, who have grown in numbers over the years, come to learn so they can take it home to their own advocacy organizations.

Love, who underwent treatment for leukemia recently, told the group that more attention has to be paid to the price women pay for their health after completing treatment for breast cancer, naming off issues such as fertility, neuropathy and other long-term and late effects as collateral damage.

She encouraged women to sign up for the HOW study, which will look at the information provided by men and women with the goal of identifying new risk factors for, and potential causes of breast cancer. HOW will also look at factors linked to long-term survival. It’s the first study of this size to collect data entirely on line.

Dr. Love has been, not only one of the best breast cancer surgeons in the country during her career, but she has also advocated for women and for new treatments with her Army of Women program in partnership with the Avon Foundation for Women. Since 2008 Army of Women has been signing up women to match with ongoing research into the causes of breast cancer and there are now 377,000 women and men signed up.

Let’s double that number for the HOW study. Let’s find the causes of breast cancer.