This LevittownNow.com reporting has been supported in part by funding from In The Know Club members.
This LevittownNow.com reporting has been supported in part by funding from 
Christy Milliken is one of those perennially upbeat women. It’s hard to catch her without a smile, even in the midst of the COVID-19 virus that has rearranged everyone’s life. A music teacher for the Council Rock School District, she stayed busy at home when schools closed their doors.
Around the same time that quarantine kicked in, a suspect mammogram crashed into Milliken’s life, and made her cry.
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She might have known, might have suspected her susceptibility to breast cancer because it runs in her family – her grandmother and an aunt, and her sister, Lisa, who is a seven-year survivor.
“I thought I was OK, but I finally went for the mammogram for the first time in four years, because they (the family) kept after me,” she said.
A follow-up exam led to a biopsy, and the cancer diagnosis.
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“That’s when I cried because I was scared,” Milliken said.
If there was good news, it was that the cancer was caught early and treatment was limited to a lumpectomy and a course of radiation.
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“By having the mammogram, I saved myself from a mastectomy and chemotherapy,” said Milliken, who shared her experience over social media in the hope that women wary of mammograms would overcome their fears.
And fear is the main reason why women neglect mammograms, said Dr. Yi Huang, a breast surgeon for Jefferson Health in Philadelphia and Bucks County.
“Women are afraid of the unknown,” Huang said, adding that most mammograms show normal results, and even if an abnormality shows, few of those indicate cancer.
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But what if, like Milliken, results are positive for malignancy?
Today’s treatments are not as draconian as they were years ago, when most cases called for a radical mastectomy and removal of surrounding lymph nodes. Many patients today can have a lumpectomy and a biopsy of surrounding nodes to see if the cancer has spread. Another approach to treatment is to administer cancer-fighting drugs to shrink the tumor before surgery.
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Fighting breast cancer is a multi-disciplinary team effort, with a tumor board in place to develop a treatment plan and to discuss results, a navigator to help schedule appointments, and social workers to assist women in financial need.
Huang also pointed out that women who have undergone mastectomies can still become pregnant and carry a fetus to term, as long as they have a uterus, ovaries and “the right amount of hormones,” she said.
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Men can also get breast cancer, but the occurrence is rare. Only one percent of all breast cancer patients are men, and those who carry the hereditary BRACA gene mutation are most at risk, Huang said.
Huang graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned her medical degree at New York University School of Medicine. She completed her residency at the Northwell North Shore Long Island Jewish Hospital.
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Huang joined Jefferson Health last year. The surgeon was drawn to her specialty because of an interest in women’s health, and quickly discounted becoming a general surgeon.
“In general surgery, you see patients before the surgery, you operate, then you never see them again. I like continuing contact with my vulnerable patients. I find that more meaningful,” Huang said.
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