The story of Eduardo Dorado, 64, is that of a survivor. She was diagnosed with breast cancer, and due to her doctor’s quick action and intervention, she emerged unscathed. It is that he complemented it with a pharmacological treatment and was able to overcome it. He acknowledges that he was afraid, but also, due to the speed of the medical approach, he did not have a traumatic process and he overcame it.
“I started with a discomfort in the left nipple, an itch, scratching and touching myself a little further inside I feel a nodule, I did not give it importance,” explained Eduardo Dorado. I went to Tucuman for a consultation with the master of mastologists in the North area, he told me not to make a problem, it could be an infection via the nipple, until at one point the clinical doctor told me that this had to be solved ” , he remembered
It was in 2012 when Dorado consulted and then went to another doctor, the oncologist Carlos Ibarra, who asked him to do a biopsy. At first, as a patient, he was afraid that they would do the study with the idea that this could spread the cancer through his body, and his doctor quickly clarified that it was not the case.
“One is afraid and prejudiced about things that one hears, that if they touch the tumor that can spread throughout the body. And he told me: I go in, cut a sample and we analyze it. He did it like this, in San Martín street it was done the biopsy. He gave a malignant cancer, grade 2, I brought him the data and he told me I’ll operate on you tomorrow, “he said.
That’s how it went. The surgery passed quickly, as they removed the tumor and thus lost the left nipple and removed the nodes. So he went to see another oncologist, Alejandro Salvatierra, who continued with his treatment.
“Thank God it was hormone-resistant positive, and I didn’t have to do anything, but just take one pill a day, as they explained to me it was an anti-hormone to prevent cancer from recurring,” he said.
Since then, five years have passed in which he did the treatment, for which he expressed his gratitude to the State, since it was free. Two years ago he was discharged and periodically checked.
“At first I was very afraid, when they told me that I had cancer it impacted me a lot. But when I left the operation the doctor told me: brother, you are cured, and I assumed that as a truth, I decreed that I no longer had cancer,” recalled Dorado .
However, he is grateful that in the controls that were done in recent years, the results of the mammograms have been negative, which meant that the cancer did not return.
He knew he was lucky because at the time of diagnosis, the doctor told him that it was the seventh case of this cancer in men in Jujuy, four of whom had died, and told him that he was the third survivor. “Thank God I was able to overcome cancer,” he said.
He stressed that the doctor’s reaction to the diagnosis and surgery was so quick, that added to the pharmacological treatment allowed him to overcome the disease.
“Cancer has no gender”
As someone who went through cancer, Eduardo Dorado acknowledged that his case was defined in a couple of months, during which time he was diagnosed and quickly acted to treat it, for which he is grateful. For this reason, he emphasized demystifying the condition and urging men and women to control it.
He stressed that the doctor’s reaction to diagnosis and surgery was so quick, which he pointed out that with this and a drug treatment he was able to overcome the cancer. “It was a process that I did not have to undergo like other patients, with lightning strikes, with hair loss. With a pill and the accompaniment of my family, I was able to overcome this, “said Dorado.
He reiterated that he feels lucky and grateful to the oncologists Carlos Ibarra and Alejandro Salvatierra. “Gentlemen, cancer has no gender, it is neither male nor female,” he said and urged to be touched, checked and consulted, highlighting that it can be very serious. It is that in his experience, that they have removed the nipple and have a scar, for him it is not traumatic, as he recognizes that it can be for someone who undergoes the treatments, which he fortunately did not experience.
Early detection of the disease is key
In 2020, 2.3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide, and 685,000 died of the disease. At the end of the same year, 7.8 million women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer in the previous five years were still alive, making this cancer the most prevalent in the world.
In Jujuy each year, 350 to 400 new cases were registered in the “Pablo Soria” hospital, for this reason it was urged that the annual mammogram be resumed, which is free there. According to 2019 Jama Oncology research, after being diagnosed with breast cancer, men would be more likely to die than women. In the study, the 5-year overall survival rate after breast cancer diagnosis was 77.6% in men compared to 86.4% in women.
One of the factors identified by the authors was the lack of adequate treatment for many men with breast cancer, and another was the later diagnosis in men than in women. Differences in the clinical characteristics, types and stages of breast tumors, age at diagnosis and cancer treatment between men and women played a fundamental role and were the cause of 63% of the disparity in mortality. This cancer most often presents as a painless lump or thickening in the breast. The medical consultation is key, and in women over 40 years an annual check-up.
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