Shannen Doherty Has Breast Cancer

[ljones]

Both the EW.com site and the online site for People magazine have revealed that Shannen has breast cancer. Here are two articles about the revelation - EW.com - Shannen Doherty Has Breast Cancer and People - Shannen Doherty: 'Yes, I Have Breast Cancer'.

I hope and pray that she will recover from this.

[Deleted]

Shannen is only 44 (younger than I am).  I hope they've caught it in time. 

[Melinda Halliwell]

Yeah I hope she gets better also.

[adzpower]

I don't even know what to say, I just hope she recovers. She's far too young. She's a strong lady, I think she'll be fine.

[lilchi7212]

Hopefully she doesn't have a family history of the disease.

[Deleted]

What makes this really awful is that it was more than likely a lack of insurance that caused this:

Doherty, 44, was forced to disclose the illness after legal documents surfaced on TMZ, revealing that the actress was suing her former business manager for failing to pay her insurance premiums, allowing her health insurance to lapse, during which time she did not receive medical care.

According to the lawsuit, the actress, who is married to photographer Kurt Iswarienko, was first diagnosed in March 2015. She "discovered that she had invasive breast cancer metastatic to at least one lymph node," the lawsuit reveals, and "was informed that her cancer had spread during 2014 (when she was uninsured)."

The actress, who is best known for her roles on the hit '90s TV show Beverly Hills, 90210 and later, Charmed, "was also informed that, had she been insured and able to visit her doctor, the cancer could potentially have been stopped, thus obviating the need for future treatment (including mastectomy and chemotherapy) that [Doherty] will likely have to suffer through now."

According to the suit, Doherty has been unable to work since the diagnosis and has incurred "significant" medical expenses.

"Her finances were not handled by someone she trusted handle them," says one Hollywood insider. "This was someone she trusted."

Since she had no insurance, she wasn't getting regular checkups, so they couldn't catch the cancer until after it had spread.  If there's any reason why the US SERIOUSLY needs to adopt a Canadian-style universal health care system, this is it.  For far too many people, one missed payment or lost job can literally mean the difference between life and death. 

Hopefully, it's not too late for Shannen.  44 is too young to die.

[Melinda Halliwell]

Well they caught Kylie Minogue's breast cancer early and she's still around so one can hope definitely.

It goes to show though anyone can get it can't they?

[Deleted]

Dealing with cancer in my family at the moment, so lots of empathy for her. All the best to her.

[Deleted]

If there's any reason why the US SERIOUSLY needs to adopt a Canadian-style universal health care system, this is it. For far too many people, one missed payment or lost job can literally mean the difference between life and death.

I agree. Our system is by no means perfect, but Shannen's cancer might have been detected earlier, had she grown up on this side of the 49th parallel.

All we can do is hope that she beats this.

[Deleted]

Unfortunately, being only 44 years old, Shannen has an uphill battle ahead of her.  Breast cancer is more aggressive and deadlier in pre-menopausal women:

Although post-menopausal women with the estrogen-receptor-positive lumina-A or lumina-B type of breast cancers "are by and large taken care of," young women susceptible to BRCA-1, 2 or the equally deadly HER-2 gene amplification, don't fare as well, says Dr. Tak Mak, director of the Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research at Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital.

For the post-menopausal subclass, "thanks to surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and drugs like Tamoxifen, more than 90 per cent will live more than five years after diagnosis, and if you're already 75 or 80 years old, and you had a good life, it is nature," he says.

"But to me, the most tragic are the pre-menopausal women, for whom breast cancer is the No. 1 killer. Many have very aggressive cases."

Struck down by a fast-replicating cancer, carriers of HER-2 or BRCA-1 often respond to treatment the first time, only to develop the disease again. Normally a tumour suppressor that controls the proliferation of cancer cells, a mutated BRCA-1 gene is associated with breast, ovarian and prostate cancers.

Ninety per cent of women with a BRCA-1 mutation will develop breast cancer by the age of 80.

To make matters worse, she's known to be a VERY heavy smoker, and that can also worsen her odds:

Long-time smokers may face an increased risk of death if they develop breast cancer, according to a Japanese study that adds to a growing body of evidence highlighting the lethal effects of cigarettes.

Among more than 800 women with breast cancer, those who had smoked for more than two decades had at least triple the odds of dying of any cause, or from breast cancer in particular, compared with women who never used cigarettes.

Fewer years of smoking were also linked to an increased risk of death from breast cancer, but the extra risk was so small that it might have been due to chance.

Other studies have explored the connection between smoking and survival among breast cancer patients, but the current research is among the first to assess the impact of the duration of smoking on outcomes for women with this type of tumor, said study co-author Dr. Masaaki Kawai, a breast oncologist at Miyagi Cancer Center Hospital in Japan, in email to Reuters Health.

Wish her all the luck in the world, because she certainly needs it!

[West]

Wish her luck, its terrible news to hear.

Its nice to see Alyssa post support to her on twitter.

[Deleted]

Hopefully, if Shannen beats this, this will persuade her to give up smoking. Nasty habit, it killed both my parents (my Dad in 1990, my Mom in 2010).

[West]

Aug 20, 2015 23:22:40 GMT -5 @tim66 said:

Hopefully, if Shannen beats this, this will persuade her to give up smoking. Nasty habit, it killed both my parents (my Dad in 1990, my Mom in 2010).

I hope so too. My dad smoked too, and I'm so proud that he gave it up. Took a few times, but 4 years on its good.

I had an uncle who died from lung cancer too. So I hate seeing people smoke. Its a nasty habit.

[Melinda Halliwell]

My nan had lung cancer though it was pneumonia what killed her as she smoked also which my uncle did to since he was 14 being in the merchant navy and whatnot.

Then my aunt Jean got bowel cancer years later which doctors caught whilst she was having a hysterectomy and she battled that 3-4 times before she died. God rest her soul though she fought to the end I heard.

I smoked a few times when I was younger as you do trying it out whatever but have not done so since and don't want to either thanks.

[Deleted]

Hopefully, this will be a wake up call for Shannen to stop smoking.

[Deleted]

Aug 20, 2015 23:22:40 GMT -5 @tim66 said:

Hopefully, if Shannen beats this, this will persuade her to give up smoking. Nasty habit, it killed both my parents (my Dad in 1990, my Mom in 2010).

Is it bad for me to say that I'm slightly surprised that Shannen has breast cancer and not lung cancer?  If you follow her work from the early 90s to the present, you can hear her voice gradually getting deeper and hoarser, a tell-tale sign of a heavy smoker.  If breast cancer wasn't going to get her, then lung cancer almost certainly would've.

I hate cigarettes, aka. Cancer Sticks.  They're disgusting, offer zero health benefits, and do nothing but make rich companies $$$ at the expense of people's health.  Thanks to secondhand smoke, even people who refuse to use these things have to suffer the side effects. 

Luckily, though, smoking is on a steep decline:

Cigarette smoking has hit the lowest point ever among American adults, a new report finds.

The percentage of U.S. adults who smoke cigarettes was 17.8 percent in 2013, a drop from 20.9 percent in 2005, and the lowest rate of smoking since researchers began tracking this figure in 1965, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The report also found the number of cigarette smokers was 42.1 million in 2013, a drop from 45.1 million in 2005, even though the U.S. population is increasing.

"There is encouraging news in this study, but we still have much more work to do to help people quit," Dr. Tim McAfee, director of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, said in a statement. [10 Scientific Quit-Smoking Tips]

The decline in smoking rates varied among different populations and regions. Smoking remains particularly high among people who live below the poverty level, those who have less education, and those who have a disability or a limitation, the report found.

The smoking rate is also high among Americans of multiple races, American Indians and Alaska Natives, compared with people of other ethnicities, the report found.

For the first time, the researchers had data to break out the smoking rate of people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual. The smoking rate in this group was 26.6 percent, higher than the smoking rate among straight people, which was 17.6 percent.

Among U.S. regions, people in the Midwest had the highest smoking rate, of 20.5 percent. The smoking rate was 19.2 percent among people in the South, and 16.9 among people in the Northeast. People who live in the West had the lowest smoking rate, of 13.6 percent, according to the report.

Cigarette smoking is considered the leading preventable cause of disease and death in the United States, killing more than 480,000 Americans each year, according to the CDC. Smoking leads to cancer, and is also a factor in heart and metabolic diseases, which account for 40 percent of tobacco-related deaths, according to the U.S. Surgeon General's report in 2014.

"We can bring down cigarette smoking rates much further, much faster, if strategies proven to work are put in place," McAfee said. These strategies include funding tobacco control programs, increasing prices of tobacco products, implementing smoke-free laws, and producing hard-hitting media campaigns, he added.

The report found that current smokers are on average cutting down on cigarettes. Among current cigarette smokers, the proportion of those who smoke every day was 76.9 percent in 2013, decreasing from 80.8 percent in 2005. People who smoked daily reported smoking on average 14.2 cigarettes per day in 2013, compared with 16.7 cigarettes in 2005.

But "cutting back by a few cigarettes a day rather than quitting completely does not produce significant health benefits,” said Brian King, a senior scientific adviser with the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health. "Smokers who quit before they’re 40 years old can get back almost all of the 10 years of life expectancy smoking takes away."

Let's hope the downward trend continues!

[Chrisaholic]

Let's hope for the best for Shannen! She could beat it if she changes her lifestyle.

[Melinda Halliwell]

Yes let's hope so although for some people quitting is a lot harder than they think especially if they've been doing it a long time.

[Deleted]

Is it bad for me to say that I'm slightly surprised that Shannen has breast cancer and not lung cancer? If you follow her work from the early 90s to the present, you can hear her voice gradually getting deeper and hoarser, a tell-tale sign of a heavy smoker. If breast cancer wasn't going to get her, then lung cancer almost certainly would've.

Hopefully, they'll check out her lung during her treatment.

A sad irony is that while smoking did contribute to the deaths of both my parents, neither died of lung cancer.  My Dad suffered a pulmonary embolism, all the blood vessels in his lungs just exploded one day.  My Mom died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (the name thing that killed Leonard Nimoy earlier this year).

That is why, like Betty, I hate those cancer sticks.  My parents would have lived longer had they never touched the damned things. 

[Deleted]

Aug 21, 2015 17:55:27 GMT -5 @tim66 said:

Hopefully, they'll check out her lung during her treatment.

A sad irony is that while smoking did contribute to the deaths of both my parents, neither died of lung cancer.  My Dad suffered a pulmonary embolism, all the blood vessels in his lungs just exploded one day.  My Mom died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (the name thing that killed Leonard Nimoy earlier this year).

That is why, like Betty, I hate those cancer sticks.  My parents would have lived longer had they never touched the damned things. 

Reading around, there's a possibility that Shannen's cancer is, yet, something else that can be traced back to those Cancer Sticks:

Researchers at the American Cancer Society have found an increased breast cancer risk among women who smoke, especially those who start smoking before they have their first child.

Although previous studies have looked at the possible relationship between breast cancer and smoking, they have not settled the controversy within the scientific community. Part of the reason is that while many studies have found a slight increase in risk overall, they have not found that smoking more cigarettes per day or smoking for more years increases the risk further, which is what might be expected.

In addition, findings about alcohol have complicated many of these studies. This is because alcohol is a known risk factor for breast cancer, and women who smoke are also more likely to drink alcohol. (The link between alcohol and breast cancer is one of the reasons the American Cancer Society recommends that women who drink limit themselves to no more than 1 drink per day.)

In the new study, published online February 28, 2013 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers analyzed data from 73,388 women in the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Prevention Study II (CPS-II) Nutrition Cohort. A cohort is a study that follows a large group of people over time. During more than 13 years of follow-up, researchers counted 3,721 cases of invasive breast cancer. The rate of new cases was 24% higher in smokers than in nonsmokers and 13% higher in former smokers than in nonsmokers.

Sad as it is, I hope Shannen takes her cancer as a hard lesson learned and ditches the Cancer Sticks once and for all. She might've thought she was invulnerable back when she was a young 20-something, but reality has a nasty way of sneaking up on you.