This Women’s History Month, Lume Deodorant founder and lobular breast cancer survivor, Dr. Shannon Klingman, has made a historic $1 million gift to the Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance (LBCA) to accelerate research into invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC).

To build on this momentum, LBCA has partnered with Dr. Klingman to launch a matching gift challenge—aiming to double the impact of her gift. Together, these funds will support four clinical research studies focused on advancing effective treatments for lobular breast cancer.

Now, LBCA has partnered with Dr. Klingman to double the impact by issuing a fundraising challenge to match her $1 million gift.  The results will fund four clinical research studies with the goal to accelerate the discovery of an effective treatment for lobular breast cancer.

“When I was diagnosed, I had never heard of lobular breast cancer,” said Dr. Klingman. “Even as an OBGYN, we don’t talk enough about the differences between breast cancer. It is critically important we understand that lobular breast cancer is a completely different disease. I realized then I needed to tell my story…and immediately asked where is the (research) funding? This is now my focus in life – investing in lobular breast cancer research. LBCA moves quickly to put funding to work, and I wanted to be part of that.”

ILC, also known as lobular breast cancer, is the least studied form of breast cancer and hardest to detect. Very few people have heard of it, but it is the second most common breast cancer type and more common than ovarian cancer. ILC comprises 10–15% of all breast cancers with up to 48,000 new diagnoses each year in the US, and the incidence is rising. Despite this, ILC has been neglected in research, receiving less than 1% of breast cancer research funding.

“We are incredibly grateful to Dr. Klingman for this wonderful gift and her recognition that LBCA is one of the best organizations to advance ILC research,” said Laurie Hutcheson, LBCA Executor Director and 7-year ILC survivor. “With this gift, we will be able to launch a competitive process to find and fund cutting edge ILC-focused research. We are hopeful it will accelerate understanding of this troubling breast cancer subtype that has been neglected far too long. With our challenge to match her amazing gift, we will fund even more ILC research and the impact will be doubled.”

ILC is a distinct type of breast cancer that behaves differently from more common breast cancers. ILC cells typically grow in thin strands instead of forming a lump which makes them extremely hard to detect on mammograms, especially in women with dense breast tissue, or elsewhere in the body if metastasized. It is often only diagnosed once tumors are larger and sometimes already metastatic and is known to recur later than other breast cancer types. Since  ILC tumors are hard to measure, patients with ILC of all stages are often excluded from clinical trials making discovery of lobular specific treatments nearly impossible.

The fundraising challenge will run through the end of May, National Cancer Research Month.