In February 2022, United States President Joseph Biden reignited the Cancer Moonshot with renewed White House leadership and new ambitious goals: to reduce the death rate from cancer by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years and improve the experience of people and their families living with and surviving cancer. The Moonshot’s focus is on what the Cancer Cabinet agencies can accomplish through new programs and collaborations.
Prompted by the press release around the Cancer Moonshot that proclaimed how far cancer research has come and how so many more cancers are diagnosed and treated earlier, the Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance (LBCA) decided it was important to share how lobular breast cancer research has been left behind; how in the case of ILC diagnoses, so many individuals are still being diagnosed with invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) at later stages and/or when their tumors are larger or metastatic. On the Cancer Moonshot webpage, organizations are invited to share information about what they are doing and what they think needs to be done.
LBCA believes that it is important that the Biden Administration understands that breast cancer has subtypes and that ILC is one that has many troubling characteristics that are not yet garnering appropriate attention. This prompted LBCA to produce a short video about the issues with ILC and with imaging in particular. The video focuses on the need for more ILC research into imaging methods, understanding recurrence, and preventing metastasis. The video includes the personal testimony of seven women affected by ILC.
The video was uploaded to the White House Cancer Moonshot portal on June 7. It is LBCA’s hope that more attention will be paid to the fact that breast cancer has subtypes and that ILC is a troubling subtype that needs more research. LBCA hopes that going forward the administration’s Cancer Cabinet agencies will focus on breast cancer as not one but many breast diseases and will support more research into ILC and all other subtypes. Watch the submitted video below.
For more information about lobular breast cancer or to make a gift visit lobularbreastcancer.org.
