Genetic testing in breast cancer followed by lung cancer

cabbott
cabbott Member Posts: 1,039 Member
edited March 2014 in Breast Cancer #1
This year, thanks to a cautious oncologist who decided to biopsy first and decide on further treatment based on the results, I found out I have BOTH stage 1 breast cancer AND stage 1 lung cancer. Both are adneocarcinomas and fortunately they were both caught early. But I'm beginning to wonder if there is some knowable genetic reason for me to be the object of not one but two kinds of cancer. From time to time I see others with both lung and breast cancer and I know that smokers are more likely to get breast cancer as well as lung cancer. But I'm a nonsmoker and our house is also radon free. So has anyone out there with both breast and lung cancer which is not a met done genetic testing and found out anything? They are not suggesting genetic testing in me yet because I was the first to get cancer in my family. Now my 1st cousin has gotten diagnosed with the breast cancer and I'm wondering who will be next. I'd be interested in any comments on genetic findings. Thanks!

Comments

  • kathydaly
    kathydaly Member Posts: 81
    #2
    Hi Cabbott,
    Of course the best way to find out if there are any genetic links would be for you and your cousin to go and have genetic testing done.

    My sister and I did at Sloan-Kettering in NYC. In fact they did it for free because they found us interesting, lol!?! We also had no previous history of breast cancer in our family, but of course they did a whole historical tree as far back as we could go. And they thought we had ages that were relatively young 38 and my sister 2yrs. later at 46.

    Actually I was told that smoking is not a factor in getting breast cancer by my surgeon and oncologist.

    They were very good and while we tested neg. for BRAC1 and BRAC2 the head guy there felt we were probably pos. for brac 3 or 4 , as yet undiscovered, because of the family's history for other cancers in generations past. As a result I was strongly encouraged to have my ovaries removed, which was in past histories. So I did.

    It was well worth it for me, I followed their advice, my ovaries were doing nothing for me any more and all they could still do was give me ovarian cancer.
  • cabbott
    cabbott Member Posts: 1,039 Member
    #3
    kathydaly said:

    Hi Cabbott,
    Of course the best way to find out if there are any genetic links would be for you and your cousin to go and have genetic testing done.

    My sister and I did at Sloan-Kettering in NYC. In fact they did it for free because they found us interesting, lol!?! We also had no previous history of breast cancer in our family, but of course they did a whole historical tree as far back as we could go. And they thought we had ages that were relatively young 38 and my sister 2yrs. later at 46.

    Actually I was told that smoking is not a factor in getting breast cancer by my surgeon and oncologist.

    They were very good and while we tested neg. for BRAC1 and BRAC2 the head guy there felt we were probably pos. for brac 3 or 4 , as yet undiscovered, because of the family's history for other cancers in generations past. As a result I was strongly encouraged to have my ovaries removed, which was in past histories. So I did.

    It was well worth it for me, I followed their advice, my ovaries were doing nothing for me any more and all they could still do was give me ovarian cancer.

    Thanks so much for your quick reply. My ovaries came out two years ago when they thought I had ovarian cancer, but it was just stubborn cysts on tamoxifen. The article on smoking and Breast Cancer was printed in Artemis, a newsletter of Breast Cancer research put out by Johns Hopkins. They were reviewing research done by the Mayo Clinic. Here's the first paragraph: "Researchers report in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings their study of postmenopausal women which supports the hypothesis that women who smoke cigarettes before first full-term pregnancy have a 20 percent increased risk of breast cancer compared with women who began smoking after the birth of their first child or were never smokers." I've read other similar stuff in the last year or so. I've also read one study where smokers had LESS breast cancer than nonsmokers, but they didn't recommend taking up the habit to prevent breast cancer, as it contributed highly to other cancers, so take your pick. In any case, my lung cancer and the breast cancer may be related and they don't come from smoking, radon,lack of veggies, lack of exercise, overweight,or exposure to known carcinogens. So I'm wondering if there is a genetic something linking these two that I may have. I will keep looking to see what BRCA 3 and 4 are. Those are new to me.
  • 24242
    24242 Member Posts: 1,398 Member
    #4
    Where I first found my lump, Alberta Canada they too said that smoking was not linked to breast cancer. Funny, since both my grandmother and I smoked prior to our own diagnosis. They too believed in this province that there was no genetic link to father's side of family since his mother was the one who had breast cancer. As it turns out both those are not accurate. I had to move to British Columbia to get a diagnosis since in the other province they too believed that I could not have breast cancer because I was too young, too well built, and too athletic to get as well as being too young at 36.
    I have heard of others having lung and breast cancer but the thought was the lung cancer was the secondary cancer. I also want to know if you had any symptoms like pain running down your arm? How about sore HIPS?? How about your exhaustion level, were you tired all the time??
    It has been said for years that truly less than 10% of all cancers can be linked genetically. I am so glad that yours was detected so early since there are those of us who's cancer was left to spread because of the way some doctors thought.
    I think that if we have lumps of any kind they need to be biopsied or removed to truly be able to tell what they are. Often fiberous cyst diagnosis are left and not always the right way to go. There is no gaurantee out there either that cysts won't turn into something at a later date. I now live in a province that has a 28% better success rate for all cancers than the other provinces in my country though we have a health act that states no matter where we shall live we are intitled to the same health care. Guess that doesn't ring true in Canada.
    Tara
  • kathydaly
    kathydaly Member Posts: 81
    #5
    cabbott said:

    Thanks so much for your quick reply. My ovaries came out two years ago when they thought I had ovarian cancer, but it was just stubborn cysts on tamoxifen. The article on smoking and Breast Cancer was printed in Artemis, a newsletter of Breast Cancer research put out by Johns Hopkins. They were reviewing research done by the Mayo Clinic. Here's the first paragraph: "Researchers report in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings their study of postmenopausal women which supports the hypothesis that women who smoke cigarettes before first full-term pregnancy have a 20 percent increased risk of breast cancer compared with women who began smoking after the birth of their first child or were never smokers." I've read other similar stuff in the last year or so. I've also read one study where smokers had LESS breast cancer than nonsmokers, but they didn't recommend taking up the habit to prevent breast cancer, as it contributed highly to other cancers, so take your pick. In any case, my lung cancer and the breast cancer may be related and they don't come from smoking, radon,lack of veggies, lack of exercise, overweight,or exposure to known carcinogens. So I'm wondering if there is a genetic something linking these two that I may have. I will keep looking to see what BRCA 3 and 4 are. Those are new to me.

    Hi Cabbott,

    That was very interesting information you quoted for me, although it did say post-menopausal women and I was pre-menopausal. I also had an ob/gyn that didn't listen to me for 3 yrs. complaining of breast pain, said lots of stuff like Tara mentioned. I was fibroid-cystic, I was too young, breast cancer doesn't cause pain, etc. Sadly enough, after I tried to sue him I found out from one of the lawyers his wife(my ob/gyn's) had died from breast cancer in the recent mos., what a surprise!! That poor woman was listening to him too. However I had stopped listening to him and had my 1st lesson in being pro-active. My 1st breast surgeon told me many yrs. later that it was a miracle I had survived that 1st bout, it was soo far spread! Doctor's.........there are terrible, egotistic ones and.......there are wonderful ones.

    And dear Cabbott, when I mentioned BRCA3 or 4, it was because the head of Genetic Testing at Memorial Sloan-Kettering was saying they weren't discovered yet and maybe wouldn't be, but he believed with our past family's history of all various cancer's, except breast, we would probably test pos. for a gene as yet to be discovered. I didn't want to sound like they were on the brink of this discovery, sorry if I was mis-leading. That being said, I do believe you and your cousin should look into it, at the very least, you will gain information, go to a teaching hospital, where do you live anyway?

    This whole thing about smoking is very bad for me, I am very reluctant to say my truth on this, because of the shame of it.
    I stopped smoking 15yrs. ago immediately after the 1st discovery. Eight or nine yrs. after that I was on a vacation, where every night we were in this Irish pub and EVERYONE drank and smoked. Well, since drinking was NOT the lesser of the 2 evils for me, and I figured I could stop after I got back home, I did start SMOKING again..... to survive the environment. I know this is hard to understand or find acceptable in any way. Obviously, you know the punch-line here. I came home and couldn't stop at first, and I was always going on the premise that smoking didn't cause breast-cancer. That had been told to me by my 1st breast cancer surgeon in '91, and not to beat myself up, which I was insofar as my previous yrs. of smoking had not caused my breast cancer, this was now '99.

    That was the genesis of my starting again and the apocalypse of it is I am now totally addicted and am still smoking about 4 -5 cigarettes a day.

    Any respect I have gained in here has now been greatly tarnished I'm sure, but I am really trying to stop, lots of times I will only smoke it half-way and throw it away because I realize I really don't want it. I have knocked it down from 8-10 cigarettes a day also.

    This may indeed be harder to stop than drinking, but I am really working on it and now having confessed it, I will have more vigilance about it.

    Thanks Cabbott and Tara, and maybe no one else will read this,lol. JK, jk jk(just kidding)

    Prayers, Love and Huggggs, Kathy

    God I really don't want to post this!!
  • karenack
    karenack Member Posts: 90
    #6
    kathydaly said:

    Hi Cabbott,

    That was very interesting information you quoted for me, although it did say post-menopausal women and I was pre-menopausal. I also had an ob/gyn that didn't listen to me for 3 yrs. complaining of breast pain, said lots of stuff like Tara mentioned. I was fibroid-cystic, I was too young, breast cancer doesn't cause pain, etc. Sadly enough, after I tried to sue him I found out from one of the lawyers his wife(my ob/gyn's) had died from breast cancer in the recent mos., what a surprise!! That poor woman was listening to him too. However I had stopped listening to him and had my 1st lesson in being pro-active. My 1st breast surgeon told me many yrs. later that it was a miracle I had survived that 1st bout, it was soo far spread! Doctor's.........there are terrible, egotistic ones and.......there are wonderful ones.

    And dear Cabbott, when I mentioned BRCA3 or 4, it was because the head of Genetic Testing at Memorial Sloan-Kettering was saying they weren't discovered yet and maybe wouldn't be, but he believed with our past family's history of all various cancer's, except breast, we would probably test pos. for a gene as yet to be discovered. I didn't want to sound like they were on the brink of this discovery, sorry if I was mis-leading. That being said, I do believe you and your cousin should look into it, at the very least, you will gain information, go to a teaching hospital, where do you live anyway?

    This whole thing about smoking is very bad for me, I am very reluctant to say my truth on this, because of the shame of it.
    I stopped smoking 15yrs. ago immediately after the 1st discovery. Eight or nine yrs. after that I was on a vacation, where every night we were in this Irish pub and EVERYONE drank and smoked. Well, since drinking was NOT the lesser of the 2 evils for me, and I figured I could stop after I got back home, I did start SMOKING again..... to survive the environment. I know this is hard to understand or find acceptable in any way. Obviously, you know the punch-line here. I came home and couldn't stop at first, and I was always going on the premise that smoking didn't cause breast-cancer. That had been told to me by my 1st breast cancer surgeon in '91, and not to beat myself up, which I was insofar as my previous yrs. of smoking had not caused my breast cancer, this was now '99.

    That was the genesis of my starting again and the apocalypse of it is I am now totally addicted and am still smoking about 4 -5 cigarettes a day.

    Any respect I have gained in here has now been greatly tarnished I'm sure, but I am really trying to stop, lots of times I will only smoke it half-way and throw it away because I realize I really don't want it. I have knocked it down from 8-10 cigarettes a day also.

    This may indeed be harder to stop than drinking, but I am really working on it and now having confessed it, I will have more vigilance about it.

    Thanks Cabbott and Tara, and maybe no one else will read this,lol. JK, jk jk(just kidding)

    Prayers, Love and Huggggs, Kathy

    God I really don't want to post this!!

    Hi Kathy, The secret is out!!! That's okay. I quit smoking 13 months ago. It was the hardest thing I ever did! I have a question for you. I have to have my ovaries out too. Tell me about the surgery and the recovery time. Did they do it laproscopically (sp)?
  • cabbott
    cabbott Member Posts: 1,039 Member
    #7
    24242 said:

    Where I first found my lump, Alberta Canada they too said that smoking was not linked to breast cancer. Funny, since both my grandmother and I smoked prior to our own diagnosis. They too believed in this province that there was no genetic link to father's side of family since his mother was the one who had breast cancer. As it turns out both those are not accurate. I had to move to British Columbia to get a diagnosis since in the other province they too believed that I could not have breast cancer because I was too young, too well built, and too athletic to get as well as being too young at 36.
    I have heard of others having lung and breast cancer but the thought was the lung cancer was the secondary cancer. I also want to know if you had any symptoms like pain running down your arm? How about sore HIPS?? How about your exhaustion level, were you tired all the time??
    It has been said for years that truly less than 10% of all cancers can be linked genetically. I am so glad that yours was detected so early since there are those of us who's cancer was left to spread because of the way some doctors thought.
    I think that if we have lumps of any kind they need to be biopsied or removed to truly be able to tell what they are. Often fiberous cyst diagnosis are left and not always the right way to go. There is no gaurantee out there either that cysts won't turn into something at a later date. I now live in a province that has a 28% better success rate for all cancers than the other provinces in my country though we have a health act that states no matter where we shall live we are intitled to the same health care. Guess that doesn't ring true in Canada.
    Tara

    My lung cancer was not a met or secondary cancer. It showed up after they did an xray, which was done only after multiple prescriptions for several different kinds of antibiotics failed to rid me of a sinus infection (which I still have). As I was coughing a lot,I was convinced that it had gone into pneumonia and they did the xray to prove to me it hadn't. The pneumonia didn't show up till the PET scan a month or so later, but some suspicious nodules did show up. Sure enough , it was lung cancer on biopsy. Persistant chest infections that won't go away can sometimes signal lung cancer but mine was mostly sinus infections that led to an xray by chance... I have had friends diagnosed from pain going down their arm or side, but mine was caught too early for that. When I was running a constant low-grade fever from the sinus/chest? infection, I was too tired to go shopping but never too tired to miss work.

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