Jenna Fischer, the actress who played Pam Beesly on The Office, says she was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer last December and is now cancer-free after completing surgery (a lumpectomy), chemotherapy, and radiation.
“My tumor was so small it could not be felt on a physical exam,” Fischer says in an announcement on Instagram, urging people not to delay their annual mammograms. “If I had waited six months longer, things could have been much worse.”
She says her initial mammogram results were inconclusive due to dense breast tissue, which can make tumors harder to spot. She followed up with a breast ultrasound that found a spot on her left breast, then got a biopsy.
Fischer says she was diagnosed with what’s known as stage 1 breast cancer — when tumors are smallest and easiest to treat — but that she had an aggressive type of tumor known as triple-positive breast cancer.
Here are five takeaways from Fischer’s experience:
1. Delaying Your Mammogram Can Have Consequences
“Seeing women post photos of their mammogram appointments on Instagram needled me into setting my own (which I was late for). I’m so glad I did,” Fischer writes in her Instagram post.
“Take care of your ‘ticking time bags,’” she adds, borrowing a joke from manager Michael Scott on The Office.
“These are the guidelines I follow,” says Richard Bleicher, MD, a professor and chief of breast surgery at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, who was not involved in Fischer’s diagnosis or treatment.
2. Knowing Your Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Score Is Important
Fischer urges her Instagram followers to make sure they know their breast cancer risk assessment score, a tool doctors use based on personal and family medical history to calculate whether somebody has an average or above-average risk. “I’m serious, call your doctor right now,” Fischer advises.
A free calculator is available online from the National Cancer Institute.
“If you have above-average risk, your doctor may advise you to start mammograms before age 40, especially if your mother or another close relative had breast cancer at a very young age,” Dr. Bleicher says.
3. A Sonogram Can Save Your Life if You Have Dense Breasts
Dense breasts, which have less fatty tissue and more fibrous tissue, are more common in younger women because the breasts tend to gain fatty tissue as you age, Bleicher says.
The reason this matters for mammograms is because fibrous tissue — including milk ducts and milk-producing glands — show up as white spots on the images, just like tumors, says Erica Warner, ScD, MPH, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and assistant investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
“Therefore, more dense tissue could potentially obscure the radiologists’ ability to visualize a tumor,” Dr. Warner says.
Breast ultrasounds, which are often used when dense breasts make tumors hard to distinguish on mammograms, can more easily show the difference between tumors and healthy fibrous tissue, Bleicher says.
“It’s important to note that the only way someone can know if they have dense breasts is by having a mammogram or other breast imaging,” Warner says. “You can’t tell if your breasts are dense just based on how they feel to the touch.”
4. Triple-Positive Breast Cancer Is Aggressive
“Luckily my cancer was caught early and it hadn’t spread into my lymph nodes or throughout the rest of my body, however because of the aggressive nature of triple-positive breast cancer it still required chemotherapy and radiation to be sure it didn’t return,” Fischer writes.
5. Stage 1 Breast Cancer Has an ‘Outstanding’ Survival Rate
The earlier the stage, the better the prognosis, and the higher the survival rate, Bleicher says. “Stage 1 is the smallest version of invasive disease,” Bleicher adds.
“Five-year relative survival for patients with stage 1 breast cancer is outstanding at 99 percent,” Warner says. “Early stage triple-positive tumors also do extremely well with comparable survival rates.”
Fischer ends her post with some good news: “I’m happy to say that I was recently re-screened, and the treatments worked. I am cancer-free. I will continue to be treated and monitored to help me stay that way.”
“Again, don’t skip your mammogram. Take it from Pam and her Pam Pams. Michael was right. Get ‘em checked ladies.”
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