97 Fun Facts About Breast Cancer Awareness

In which month is Breast Cancer Awareness Month observed?

October. The campaign began in 1985 to push mammograms as a way to catch the disease early.

Which company's pharmaceutical arm co-founded National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 1985?

Imperial Chemical Industries. Its drug labs, now part of AstraZeneca, had created tamoxifen, which began life as a failed contraceptive pill.

Before the pink ribbon became standard, Charlotte Haley handed out ribbons of which colour in 1991?

Peach. When Haley refused to team up with a magazine and a cosmetics company, they switched to pink so they wouldn't need her permission.

The pink ribbon was formalised in the 1992 Breast Cancer Awareness issue of which magazine?

Self. Its editor teamed up with a cosmetics firm whose makeup counters handed out the ribbons.

Which actor's 2013 essay about her preventive surgery set off a surge in referrals for breast cancer genetic advice?

Angelina Jolie, who chose the surgery after a gene test showed she carried a faulty BRCA1 gene.

Nancy Brinker founded her breast cancer foundation in 1982 in memory of whom?

Her sister, Susan Goodman Komen, whom Brinker had promised to do all she could to beat breast cancer.

Which pop star's 2005 breast cancer diagnosis prompted more women to book mammograms?

Kylie Minogue, who postponed her concert tour so she could begin treatment.

Which cosmetics executive founded the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in 1993, with the pink ribbon as symbol?

Evelyn Lauder. She also raised millions to build the breast centre at Memorial Sloan Kettering that now bears her name.

Which US sports league is known for putting pink on and off the field every autumn?

Critics of such marketing coined the term 'pinkwashing'.

Breast Cancer Action coined 'pinkwashing' for companies doing what?

Backing the ribbon but selling carcinogens. The group launched Think Before You Pink in 2002 to push shoppers to question such products.

Which First Lady's openness about her 1974 breast surgery boosted breast cancer awareness?

Betty Ford. Speaking openly about it helped make breast cancer something women could discuss rather than hide.

Which yogurt brand, sold with pink lids to raise breast cancer money, dropped milk made with the hormone rBGH after activists objected?

Yoplait. Breast Cancer Action's 'Put a Lid On It' campaign pressed its maker, General Mills, which then pledged to go rBGH-free.

Under updated FDA rules, what must US screening centres tell women about?

Their breast density, because dense tissue makes a mammogram more likely to miss a cancer.

Breast cancer is diagnosed about how many times as often in women as in men?

About 100 times. Because diagnosis is often delayed, men's breast cancers are more likely to be found at an advanced stage.

The chemotherapy drug paclitaxel, used for breast cancer, was first isolated from which tree?

The Pacific yew. The trees grow so slowly, and so much bark was needed, that the drug came to be made semi-synthetically.

Which breast test did the FDA warn is wrongly promoted as an alternative to mammograms?

Thermography. It only maps heat on the skin's surface, and the FDA says it hasn't been shown to catch early cancer on its own.

Cold caps worn during chemotherapy for breast cancer are meant to prevent what?

Hair loss. Chilling the scalp narrows its blood vessels while the chemotherapy drugs are being given.

Which German surgeon carried out an early X-ray study of 3,000 removed breasts in 1913?

Albert Salomon, though breast X-rays became a routine diagnostic tool only decades later, after Robert Egan's work around 1960.

In 2012 the Susan G. Komen charity moved to cut its breast-exam grants to which organization?

Planned Parenthood. Facing a backlash, Komen reversed the decision within days.

The most common type of breast cancer starts in which part of the breast?

The milk ducts. Men's breasts have ducts but hardly any lobules, so most breast cancers in men are ductal too.

Ancient Greek physicians blamed breast cancer on an excess of which bodily 'humour'?

Black bile. Galen backed the humoral theory, and it shaped how doctors treated cancer for centuries.

Which geneticist linked inherited breast cancer to a gene on chromosome 17 in 1990?

Mary-Claire King. She also used genetic tests to help return children stolen in Argentina in the 1970s and 80s to their families.

BRCA genes normally make proteins that do what?

Repair DNA. When a harmful change disables that repair job, errors pile up and a cell can become cancerous.

Tamoxifen works by blocking the action of which hormone in breast tissue?

Estrogen. Oddly, tamoxifen mimics estrogen in some other tissues, such as bone, so it's called a selective estrogen receptor modulator.

Which chemist first synthesised tamoxifen in 1962, while working on a contraceptive pill project?

Dora Richardson. As a contraceptive it flopped, because instead of suppressing ovulation it stimulated it.

Trastuzumab, sold as Herceptin, targets breast cancers that over-express which protein?

HER2 is amplified in 20 to 30 percent of early-stage breast cancers; the drug was approved in the US in September 1998.

Which rare breast cancer often first shows up as an itchy, crusty, flaking nipple?

Paget disease. Its crusty, flaking nipple rash is nearly always a sign of an underlying breast cancer.

What is the surgical name for removal of one or both breasts?

Mastectomy. Surgeons can rebuild the breast afterwards, sometimes during the very same operation.

Which Johns Hopkins surgeon's radical breast operation also removed the chest muscles?

William Halsted, who had Goodyear make rubber gloves to protect his scrub nurse's sensitive hands.

Breast-conserving surgery that removes just the tumour and a margin of healthy tissue is called what?

Lumpectomy. Followed by radiation, it has proved as good for survival as removing the whole breast in early cancers.

In the TNM cancer staging system, what does the 'M' stand for?

Metastasis. Once breast cancer has spread to distant organs it is very hard to cure, though treatment can often slow it.

In a sentinel lymph node biopsy, how do surgeons find the node to remove?

Injected dye collects in it: the sentinel node is the first place cancer cells would likely reach, so a clear one often spares the rest.

Which aggressive breast cancer has malignant cells blocking the lymph vessels in the breast's skin?

Inflammatory breast cancer, named for the red, swollen look it gives the breast, whose skin can pit like orange peel.

In 2013 the US Supreme Court ruled that natural human genes, like those behind inherited breast cancer, cannot be what?

Patented. Isolated natural DNA is a 'product of nature', the court said, though lab-made cDNA can still be patented.

Which everyday habit raises breast cancer risk?

Drinking alcohol. Even light drinking is linked to a higher risk, and the risk climbs the more a woman drinks.

What is the most common symptom of breast cancer?

A new mass, though most breast masses turn out not to be cancer.

Large trials found regular breast self-examination has what effect on breast cancer deaths?

None. Trials in Shanghai and Russia found death rates about the same, but more harmless breast changes were biopsied.

Men with which chromosomal condition face a much higher risk of breast cancer?

Klinefelter syndrome. Men with it carry an extra X chromosome, and the hormone imbalance linked to it raises breast cancer risk.

Which poet's 1980 book 'The Cancer Journals' recounts her own breast cancer?

Audre Lorde, who chose not to wear a breast prosthesis after her surgery.

The oldest known description of breast tumours appears in which ancient Egyptian medical text?

The Edwin Smith Papyrus. It described bulging breast tumours as a grave illness and said there was no treatment.

The word 'carcinoma' comes from the Greek term Hippocrates used for tumours, which literally means what?

Crab: the swollen veins spreading out from a tumour reminded him of a crab's legs.

Which type of medicine is trastuzumab (Herceptin)?

It is on the WHO's List of Essential Medicines, as is tamoxifen.

Which bat maker produced the pink bats MLB players first swung on Mother's Day in 2006?

Louisville Slugger. The pink bats were later autographed and auctioned to raise money for breast cancer causes.

Which former child star went public about her breast cancer diagnosis in 1972?

Shirley Temple Black, who went on to write about her experience in a women's magazine.

Which support program did Terese Lasser start in the 1950s for women who had just had breast surgery?

Reach to Recovery. Its trained volunteers have been through breast cancer themselves, so patients hear from someone who has lived it.

The 1930s–40s 'Women's Field Army' early-detection campaign was run by the forerunner of which organisation?

It used explicit military metaphors, casting prompt medical action as every woman's duty in the war on cancer.

Komen's first Race for the Cure, held in 1983, took place in which Texas city?

Dallas, the charity's home city; races like it helped turn public awareness into money for research.

If breast cancer spreads beyond the breast, it usually reaches lymph nodes in which part of the body first?

The armpit nodes are where it usually goes first, so surgeons check them to find out whether a tumour has started to travel.

In 2020 breast cancer became the world's most commonly diagnosed cancer, overtaking cancer of which organ?

The lungs had held the top spot until figures from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, released in December 2020, put breast cancer ahead.

Roughly what share of American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives?

1 in 8 is the lifetime risk usually quoted for the United States, and the sum assumes that every woman lives to at least 95.

Dimpled, pitted skin on the breast is a warning sign of cancer that doctors compare to the peel of which fruit?

An orange gives the sign its French name, peau d'orange: swelling under the skin buries the hair follicles and leaves them looking like sunken pores.

Which Beatle's mother, Mary, and wife, Linda, were both treated for breast cancer, decades apart?

Paul McCartney was 14 when his mother died after surgery for the disease, and Linda died of it in 1998; a tribute concert filled the Royal Albert Hall a year later.

Which Sex and the City character is diagnosed with breast cancer in the HBO comedy's sixth and final season?

Samantha Jones pulls off her wig in the middle of a speech at a cancer benefit, and the women in the audience stand up and remove theirs too.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus learned she had breast cancer the day after winning an Emmy in 2017 for which comedy?

Veep had just brought her a sixth consecutive win as Selina Meyer; she announced the diagnosis days later and came back to film a final season.

Which fast-food chain's pink 2010 fundraiser for the Komen foundation was attacked by activists as pinkwashing?

KFC sold fried chicken in pink buckets and raised about $4 million, while critics asked why a breast cancer charity was promoting fast food.

Rachel Carson hid her breast cancer so pesticide makers could not use it against which landmark book?

Silent Spring was finished while she was ill, and she feared the industry would call it biased if it knew; she died in 1964, less than two years after it came out.

Which pop superstar's father and former manager was treated for male breast cancer in 2019?

Beyoncé's father, Mathew Knowles, best known as the manager of Destiny's Child, was treated successfully, a reminder that men have breast tissue too.

When breast cancer travels to distant parts of the body, which site does it reach most often?

The bones are the commonest site, involved in roughly 70 percent of advanced cases, and the spread can cause severe pain and fractures.

Which Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed star was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 after her insurance lapsed?

Shannen Doherty said the gap in cover delayed her diagnosis; she revealed in 2020 that the cancer had returned at stage IV, and she died in 2024, aged 53.

The Breast Cancer Research stamp of 1998 was the first US postage stamp designed to do what?

Raise money for a cause is the job of a semi-postal stamp: buyers pay more than the postage rate, and the surplus goes to federal research programmes.

Olivia Newton-John, who had breast cancer three times, raised funds for a cancer centre in which Australian city?

Melbourne's Austin Hospital opened the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre in 2012; the Grease star had first been diagnosed in 1992.

Which All I Wanna Do singer learned she had breast cancer in 2006, weeks after splitting from Lance Armstrong?

Sheryl Crow had surgery and seven weeks of radiation, then walked back on stage in Florida three months after the diagnosis.

Which rock singer, bald from chemotherapy, sang a Janis Joplin tribute at the 2005 Grammy Awards?

Melissa Etheridge had been diagnosed only four months earlier, and she joined Joss Stone on stage for one of Joplin's best-known songs.

Which tennis great, winner of 18 Grand Slam singles titles, revealed in 2010 that she had breast cancer?

Martina Navratilova's tumour was caught by a routine scan and removed within weeks; nine of those singles titles came at Wimbledon.

In the diagnosis carcinoma in situ, what does the Latin phrase in situ say about the abnormal cells?

Still in place is the meaning: the cells sit where they first formed and have not invaded nearby tissue, so staging systems list them as stage 0.

Peter Criss, who went public about his 2008 breast cancer diagnosis, was the original drummer of which rock band?

Kiss fans knew him as the Catman; he noticed a lump on his chest while working out, saw a doctor and was treated successfully.

Doxorubicin, a breast cancer drug nicknamed the red devil, is notorious for damaging which organ at high doses?

The heart is the worry: the risk of lasting muscle damage climbs with the total dose, and the nickname comes from the drug's red colour.

Which author of Evelina wrote a harrowing account of her 1811 breast operation, endured without anaesthetic?

Fanny Burney was awake through most of the surgery in Paris, carried out by a team she described as seven men in black, and she lived until 1840.

Japanese surgeon Hanaoka Seishū removed a breast tumour in 1804 with the help of which innovation of his own?

A general anaesthetic of his own devising, a herbal mix called tsūsensan, put the patient to sleep; the years of trials behind it cost his wife her sight as a volunteer.

Which Sicilian martyr, painted holding her severed breasts on a dish, is patron saint of breast cancer patients?

Agatha is also the patron of bellfounders, because the shapes on her platter in old paintings looked like bells.

Which paddling sport did Dr Don McKenzie introduce to breast cancer survivors in 1996, inspiring teams worldwide?

Dragon boat racing appealed to him as strenuous upper-body exercise done in a supportive group, and his first crew named itself Abreast in a Boat.

Which sport's annual Pink Test in Sydney turns a stadium pink to fund the McGrath Foundation's breast care nurses?

Cricket fast bowler Glenn McGrath set up the charity with his wife Jane, and day three of the Sydney Test is now called Jane McGrath Day.

Walkers in London's night-time MoonWalk marathon for breast cancer charities famously wear which decorated garment?

A bra was what founder Nina Barough dreamed of power walking a marathon in; she and 13 friends did exactly that in 1996 and raised £25,000.

Which cosmetics company launched its own two-day breast cancer walk in 2002, covering a marathon and a half?

Avon walkers covered 26.2 miles on the first day and a half-marathon on the second, 39.3 miles in all.

In which city did Komen hand a pink ribbon to every participant in its 1991 Race for the Cure?

New York runners got their ribbons a year before a magazine and a cosmetics house spread the idea across the country.

Which long-term swelling of the arm can follow the removal of lymph nodes during breast cancer surgery?

Lymphedema shows up on the same side as the operation, when fluid that the missing nodes once drained builds up in the limb.

Which Swedish-born film star kept acting for eight years with breast cancer and died on her 67th birthday?

Ingrid Bergman played Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in her last role, filmed months before she died, and it won her an Emmy after her death.

Which sitcom's title character, a TV journalist, was treated for breast cancer throughout the show's 1997–98 season?

Murphy Brown's storyline was credited with a 30 percent rise in the number of women getting mammograms that year, and star Candice Bergen was honoured for it.

Which sitcom star played NBC correspondent Betty Rollin in First, You Cry, a 1978 TV film about breast cancer?

Mary Tyler Moore starred opposite Anthony Perkins in the CBS drama, which was based on Rollin's 1976 memoir of the same name.

Which Son of a Preacher Man singer died of breast cancer two weeks before entering the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Dusty Springfield first felt ill while recording in Nashville in 1994, and her friend Elton John helped induct her in 1999.

Which American essayist wrote Illness as Metaphor in 1978 while she was being treated for breast cancer?

Susan Sontag argued that the metaphors wrapped around cancer leave patients feeling that their own emotions brought on the illness.

A 1998 US federal law requires health insurers that pay for breast removal to also cover which procedure?

Reconstruction is covered at every stage under the Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act, along with surgery on the other breast so that the two match.

Which harmless breast lump is nicknamed a breast mouse because it slips away under the fingers?

A fibroadenoma is a firm, rubbery, painless lump with clear edges, found most often in women in their twenties and thirties.

On a breast tumour's pathology report, PR-positive means the cancer cells carry receptors for which hormone?

Progesterone receptors are one of the three markers every new tumour is sorted by, because they help decide whether hormone-blocking drugs are worth giving.

Which breast cancer subtype, the most challenging to treat, cannot be tackled with hormone therapy or Herceptin?

Triple-negative tumours lack all three receptors that those drugs aim at, so surgery, radiation and chemotherapy carry the load in the early stages.

Umberto Veronesi's landmark 1970s trial of breast-conserving surgery is named after which Italian city?

Milan gave its name to the trial showing that removing a quarter of the breast, followed by radiotherapy, saved as many lives as the radical operation.

Which Pittsburgh surgeon's trials proved that smaller breast cancer operations worked as well as the radical one?

Bernard Fisher's results ended a practice that had been standard for more than 75 years; he died in his home city in 2019, aged 101.

Which economist's surgeon brother, Geoffrey, treated breast cancer with radium instead of the radical operation?

John Maynard Keynes's younger brother worked at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, where he also made advances in blood transfusion.

Herodotus describes which Persian queen, wife of Darius the Great, being cured of a breast tumour by a Greek slave?

Atossa was treated by Democedes, a captive physician, and Siddhartha Mukherjee imagines her travelling through time in The Emperor of All Maladies.

Which Nickel and Dimed author attacked pink-ribbon culture in her 2001 essay Welcome to Cancerland?

Barbara Ehrenreich wrote it after her own diagnosis, and its subtitle complained that a mammogram had led her into a cult of pink kitsch.

Which future Second Lady had surgery on both breasts in 1974, weeks after the First Lady's own operation?

Happy Rockefeller took up the role that December, when her husband Nelson was sworn in as Vice President, and she lived to the age of 88.

Anastrozole, a pill taken after the menopause to stop breast cancer returning, belongs to which class of drugs?

Aromatase inhibitors cut hormone production in body fat, the main source after the menopause, and so starve tumours that depend on that hormone.

Which term describes chemotherapy given before breast cancer surgery, usually to shrink a tumour first?

Neoadjuvant treatment can shrink a tumour enough to turn an untreatable cancer into a treatable one, and it shows doctors early whether the drugs are working.

Which California biotech company developed Herceptin with UCLA, opening its first trial with 15 women in 1992?

Genentech was pressed by patient advocates into running a lottery that gave 100 women a quarter access to the drug outside its trials.

Which Dead to Me star chose to have both breasts removed in 2008 although cancer was found in only one?

Christina Applegate was declared cancer-free after the double operation; her mother had come through the same disease before her.

Which actor, famous as the detective John Shaft, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993 and had both breasts removed?

Richard Roundtree, often called cinema's first African American action hero, also had chemotherapy and lived for another thirty years.

Which actor played Herceptin researcher Dennis Slamon in Living Proof, a 2008 TV film about the drug's long trials?

Harry Connick Jr. portrayed the UCLA doctor across eight years of work on the drug, from 1988 to 1996, including the moment its funding was pulled.