Actor Olivia Munn recently shared her Luminal B breast cancer diagnosis on Instagram. Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in the UK and the second most common form of cancer in women in the United States after skin cancer.
“In February of 2023, in an effort to be proactive about my health, I took a genetic test that checks you for 90 different cancer genes,” explained 43-year-old Munn. “I tested negative for all, including BRCA. That same winter I also had a normal mammogram. Two months later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.”
Munn gives credit to her OBGYN, Dr Thaïs Aliabadi, for catching her cancer a year before she was due for another mammogram, despite the fact that the median age for diagnosis in the United States is 62. So what led Aliabadi to run further tests? Munn’s results from The Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool, also known as the Gail Method.
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The questionnaire, which requires less than three minutes to complete, takes into account a handful of statistics relating to women over the age of 35 to estimate their likelihood of developing breast cancer both within the next five years and within their lifetime. While The Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool isn’t currently available in the UK, the NHS is roadtesting a similar questionnaire known as BC-Predict with encouraging results.
For Munn, the assessment came back with a lifetime risk of 37 per cent – a number that seems low, but set off an alarm bell for Aliabadi. “Because of that score, I was sent to get an ultrasound, which then led to a biopsy,” Munn says. “The biopsy showed I had Luminal B cancer in both breasts. Luminal B is an aggressive, fast moving cancer.” Since then, the mother to two-year-old Malcolm has undergone a double mastectomy along with other surgeries to save her life.
Munn, who is now in recovery, ends her story with a call to action: “I’m lucky. We caught it with enough…
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