Oh hello, Welcome to Healthy Ish, your daily podcasts from Body and Soul. I'm your host, Felicity Harley. You've no doubt read the headlines. You've seen the statistics breast cancer in young women is increasing pretty concerning, isn't it? So? The big question why and what can you do to help protect yourself no matter what your age? Well, I'm joined today by Cure Cancer postdoctoral researcher at the Olivia Newton John Cancer Research Institute, doctor Kelly Moushmore. Of course,
we are highlighting Breast Cancer Awareness Month. She's going to talk about all of the above, these scary statistics and how you can protect yourself. Make sure you're listening to Extra healthy Ish, our sister podcast, where Kelly discusses the impact of family history on your likelihood of breast cancer. You can get that wherever you get your podcasts. Kelly, thank you for us on Healthy Today. How are you?
I'm great, Thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to discuss some things about breast cancer.
Yeah, I'm so glad we've got you on this podcast. We should have got you on a lot earlier. But as we all know, the stats are increasing more young women are getting cancer. Why the increase? What's going on out there?
Yeah, it's a really complex issue and we currently don't have a clear answer. So for melanoma, we know that sun exposure is a really important risk factor, and we know with lung cancer, smoking is really important. But breast cancer is a bit trickier. We know that if young women have inherited a mutation so you might have heard of bracker before, this can lead to very aggressive disease
that can appear really early. But in terms of general risk, this can be a combination of a lot of lifestyle factors, so alcohol intake, maybe leading a more sedentary lifestyle, so lack of exercise and being overweight, and also how our lives are different now we're having children at a later age and having less children, So together all of these factors could potentially lead to increase risk. But in saying that, breast cancer can also happen in perfectly healthy young women.
So there's still a lot that we really don't know or understand.
Yeah, I think that's well said. I mean, there's no one reason it could be this. It could be this, it could be this. I mean, we don't really know as yet, and it's really concerning, especially when you see the Cape Middleton headlines, and I mean the headlines. Obviously, if we're a young woman and young women is under fifty is and is that what you categorize the age bracket ads.
Yeah, so early breast early cancers are classified as people under the age of fifty. But often when people are talking about early breast cancer, they're talking about under the age of forty. And so when we see the statistics, we have seen that in Australia there'll be one thousand women under the age of forty who are diagnosed with breast cancer each year.
Gosh, that's a lot. Talk to us about triple negative breast cancer now and why this is well relevant to those women under thirty specifically.
Yeah, So when we're diagnosed with breast cancer, a pathologist looks at our tumor and will classify it into a type. And triple negative is a type that is found in around ten to fifteen percent of all breast cancer patients. And it's called triple negative because it's missing three things that are found on other types of breast cancer. And these things are to do with hormones. So because triple
negative patients missing these things to do with hormones. They aren't eligible for therapies that other type of breast cancer patients get where we try to block the effects of hormones, and it's because they're not eligible for these therapies that they have really limited treatment options, so usually just chemotherapy, which sometimes isn't that effective, and triple negative patients often see quite aggressive disease that's likely to recur.
So what's your research, because your research is specifically on this area, tell us a bit about well, what you're trying to find.
Yeah, so my interest is mostly in a treatment called immunotherapy, and immunotherapy has kind of been a game changer for triple negative breast cancer. So it was approved in Australia around two years ago and it's a way to kind of supercharge our immune system to try and fight off the breast cancer. But we currently don't know who it will and won't benefit, so it only actually helps about fifty percent of triple negative patients. So my current work, which I want to give a shout out, is funded
by a wonderful Australian charity called Cure Cancer. What I'm doing is I'm looking at samples from triple negative patients who have had immunotherapy and trying to find out what it is about their tumor that meant that they had a good or a not so good response to immune therapy.
So you think it's more to do with the tumor rather than how their bodies, how their immune systems fighting fighting it.
Yeah, So we often see in the tumor that the immune system is trying to get rid of the cancer, but it's either stuck at the edges of the cancer and can't get in, or the tumor cells have kind of told the immune system to go to sleep, like there's nothing here, nothing to see. You just lay low and I'll continue to grow and spread. So we call that immune exhaustion. So that can happen as well. And there's no sort of one thing that's happening in triple negative.
Every patient can have a completely different looking tumor.
Wow, I mean that must be equally frustrating and equally inspiring to try and find the answer to it. Now, just back to general breast cancer or all different types of breast cancer. The current recommendation for the MAMMA grand the breast screening is age fifty to seventy four years. I mean for a woman who is under that, that can be quite concerning. Do you think we should make this younger or should women be putting their hand up
in having these? I mean, I don't think we can can I'm not quite sure of when you over forty that you can have it, because I've definitely had a few.
Well, I think that the current breast screen program is for women above fifty, but that is actually for a very good reason, and it's because breast screening is normally conducted by a mammogram, and mammograms aren't especially good at picking up breast cancer in young women. And this is actually because younger women tend to have more dense breast tissue, and so the mammogram can't potentially see the tumor within the really dense breast tissue. So mammograms aren't great for
younger women. Instead, you're more likely to need something like an ultrasound. And I would say that if younger women do have a strong family history of breast cancer, then they're pretty likely to already have an arrangement with their clinician where they would be having increased screening via ultrasound.
Now, for everyone listening. What is the most important thing we can do to lower our breast cancer right now today?
Yeah, Well, a lot of things just aren't within our control. But something that we can control is just trying to lead a healthy lifestyle, so maintaining a good level of physical activity, not smoking, and limiting our alcohol intake, and maintaining a healthy weight. So these are all things that could help. But as I said, we can only control so much, and it's kind of just by virtue of us having breasts that we're at risk of breast cancer. So I think that being breast aware, that's something that
we say is the best possible prevention. So just regularly checking our breasts for any abnormal changes and then following any of these concerns up with our GP. And so when breast cancer is caught early, the treatments are usually much more successful and our risk of the cancer coming back after treatment is really reduced. So prevention here is key.
Breast aware. I love that slogan. Kelly, Thank you for coming on healthy.
Ish, Thanks so much for having me.
Folks take Kelly's advice check your breasts, No, you're normal, be breast aware. Thank you for tuning into this chat. With Kelly. If you enjoyed it, tell us, rate and review this episode, subscribe to this podcast. If you do have any ideas for any upcoming epps in the lid
up to Christmas, dm me at Felicity Harley. Also make sure you're following us on social media via Body and Soul jump online, bodyansoul dot com dot you grab our print edition which is out in your local Sunday paper And until next time you listen, hopefully tomorrow, Stay healthy ish