10/04/09: WNYers Make Strides to Against Breast Cancer

Study Shows More NY Women Getting Preventative Mastectomies
“Save Second Base!” yelled a group of preteens in Niagara Square.
“Oh you gotta save the knockers!” added a college student with door knockers painted on her t-shirt. Breast cancer survivors and awareness supporters braved the rain and cold temps in downtown Buffalo Sunday morning for the 14th Annual “making Strides Against Brest Cancer” walk.
More than six-thousand people filled Buffalo’s Niagara Square.
“Save the Ta-Tas! Yeah, touch your bobbies!” said Lakeview breast cancer survivor Barbara LeBarron.
“I had a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, radiation in 2000. Been doing fine ever since,” she added.
The annual walk raised a half-million dollars to fight breast cancer. The disease claims the lives of more than 300 women a year in Western New York. The American Cancer Society reports more than 1300 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year in the Buffalo-Niagara region.
“Check yourself out! You know it may save your life!” stated Buffalos’ Darrel Wiggins. He says self-examinations helped his wife Regina detect and fight breast cancer. She was diagnosed back in 2007.
“I had a partial mastectomy back in March,” said Regina Wiggins surrounded by her family. Two of her adult daughters dawned hot pink wigs in support of the pink ribbon campaign. Regina Wiggins lives with breast and bone cancer, but says her mastectomy helped save her life.
“They took the cancer out and then I’m still surviving from breast cancer and I have bone cancer, but I’m still surviving,” said Wiggins.
A State Department of Health study found that more women across New York are opting to have mastectomies as a way of preventing breast cancer. Eighty-one percent of those women had been diagnosed in the past, while 19% of those women had never been diagnosed with breast cancer.
“The decision can be personal preference, by the patient. Sometimes it is based more on the tumor itself,” said breast surgeon Vivian L. Linfield with The Western New York Breast Health office. She performs about one thousand lumpectomies and 400 mastectomies a year.
The NYS health department study surveyed more than 6,000 women across the Empire State who underwent preventative mastectomies. They found the number of patients who removed at least one healthy breast more than doubled over an 11 year period.
“They don’t want to undergo other treatments like radiation. Sometimes it’s peace of mind,” added Dr. Linfield.
Breast cancer survivors say the best way to stay alive is just to keep on living.
“Just keep going, keep going day by day,” smiled breast cancer survivor Regina Wiggins.