The Race to Make a Vaccine for Breast Cancer

When Karen Lynch was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 44, it was a shock, but not a complete surprise. “My family history is just riddled with cancer; my father had prostate cancer and died from stomach and esophageal cancer, and his five sisters passed from breast cancer,” she says. “My mother died from pancreatic cancer.” It was 1996, and genetic testing was not as routine as it is now, so it wasn’t until nine years after her diagnosis and treatment with lumpectomy and radiation that Lynch learned she carried the BRCA1 mutation, which increases her risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer. She decided to have a bilateral mastectomy and hysterectomy to reduce her risk of having a recurrence or a new cancer in her ovaries. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “I had no problem with the hysterectomy, since I was 54,” says Lynch, who lives in Glenolden, Penn. and works as a paralegal. “But it was hard to wrap my head around having a preventive mastectomy, even though my doctors said it was not a case of, ‘will’ you get breast cancer again, but ‘when.’’” After three years of consideration and research, Lynch had the surgery, knowing it was her best chance to avoid getting cancer again and to live a long, healthy life. But she is eager to do more. In January, she joined a groundbreaking study at Penn Medicine, where she is treated, to test a vaccine that could potentially prevent breast...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Cancer feature Frontiers of Medicine 2022 healthscienceclimate sponsorshipblock Source Type: news