• Question: Is it true that men can also get breast cancer as well as women and how many of the population have breast cancer?

    Asked by sophieb to Amar, Ana, Andrea, Leah, Matt on 17 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Anastasia Wass

      Anastasia Wass answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Yes men can also get breast cancer. Not as many men get breast cancer as women.
      According to cancer research UK 349 men were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011 compared to 49,936 women.

    • Photo: Matthew Lam

      Matthew Lam answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Yes men can get breast cancer too although as Anastasia pointed out, it’s much rarer in men than in women.

      The causes of male breast cancer are still not as well known compared to what we know about female breast cancer but several factors have been shown to be similar. For example, obesity and several genetic mutations have been shown to increase breast cancer risk in both men and women.

    • Photo: Andrea Hanvey

      Andrea Hanvey answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Male breast cancer diagnosis in the laboratory is treated the same way as a female breast cancer. They are both tested for oestrogen receptors (ER) . A positive ER is good news for the patient as it means they can go on a specific treatment for their breast cancer known as tamoxifen.

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