While we think of breast cancer only occurring mainly in women with well–breasts–an 8-year-old Utah girl was diagnosed with secretory breast carcinoma, a rare form of breast cancer.
According to a report in the Pediatric Surgery International Journal, secretory breast carcinoma is extremely rare. It accounts for less than 1 percent of all breast cancer cases.
Secretory carcinoma is a rare but distinct subtype of breast carcinoma, with characteristic histomorphology and generally favorable prognosis. Although it was originally described as a juvenile breast carcinoma, occurring in young children, most cases have been reported in adults of both sexes. As the name implies, the characteristic histomorphology is the presence of a large amount of intracellular and extracellular, eosinophilic secretion material that stains positive for periodic acid.
It was actually Chrissy who first found the tumor.
“She came to us on a Sunday afternoon,” Chrissy’s mother Annette Turner said, “She said ‘Mommy I have been scared and I have this lump.’ She said it had been there for a while.”
So, “I was in shock,” Annette explained about her daughter’s diagnosis. “No child should ever have to go through cancer,” she added.
Breast cancer is hitting all kinds of women, but African American women need to take special notice. For Black women, the risk of getting breast cancer is lower than for white women, but the risk of dying from breast cancer is higher. For example, in 2011, African-American women had a 44 percent higher rate of breast cancer mortality (death) than white women.
Annette, has battled with cancer, cervical cancer as a matter of fact. And her father is currently battling of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, having been diagnosed when she was a baby.
“Our daughter was our therapy,” Annette says of her husbands recovery.
Speaking about her daughter’s shocking diagnosis, Mrs Turner told the TV station: “I broke down. It’s a struggle every day worrying about my family, about my husband and now my baby girl.”
“My heart and thoughts are on my daughter and having her get better,” Turner said to ABC News.
“I was kind of scared to kind of figure out what it was,” Chrissy told ABC News.
Although rare, doctors at the Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City said they are confident that it can be removed.
“It is very treatable,” said Chrissy’s physician Dr. Brian Bucher, at Primary Children’s Hospital. “Chrissy will need to undergo a simple mastectomy…to remove all the remaining breast tissue to prevent this cancer from coming back.”
Chrissy’s case was being presented nationally and is being reviewed by top oncologists in the country along with being taken to the Utah state tumor board.
Chrissy, now 10 and in remission, says, “it’s important to be aware of your body no matter what age you are. If you ever find a lump, don’t wait. You should go to a doctor have it looked at.”
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