Countywide : Gayle Wilson Urges Early Breast Exams

Gayle Wilson, wife of Gov. Pete Wilson, on Friday urged women to save their lives by seeking early breast cancer detection when she toured UCI Medical Center’s Clinical Cancer Center.

She also publicized a new law expected to raise millions of dollars for breast cancer research and prevention through a 2-cent tax on cigarettes.

“I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s fun to have a mammogram,” Wilson said. But she pointed to the 92% survival rate of women who have had early detection as an encouraging sign.

Wilson expressed concern that Orange County has the highest incidence of the disease. Of the 20,000 Californians who will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, one out of seven Orange County women have the disease compared to the national average of one out of nine.

Doctors at UCI’s Breast Center suggested the high rate might be attributed to the higher number of affluent women in Orange County, and the fact that they tend to have children later in life. Women who have children earlier in life have a lower risk of breast cancer, said Breast Center Director Dr. Alan Wile.

But despite the higher incidence of breast cancer in Orange County, all agreed that early detection is the key to successfully treating the disease.

“I feel like my life has been saved because I had such careful follow-up,” said Gigi Stay, a 50-year-old Huntington Beach woman who used non-surgical treatment, including radiation, to save her breast.

“I knew that I was at risk. I had two aunts who died of breast cancer for lack of early detection,” she said.

Stay underwent a mastectomy of her other breast when follow-up tests revealed she had cancer there as well.

One reason women fail to have mammograms is because they cannot afford them, or do not have health insurance, Wilson said. The average mammogram costs $80. Half of the money generated by the cigarette tax will be aimed at providing mammograms and biopsies for uninsured women.

UCI Medical Center, which cares for the largest number of indigent patients in the county, and 13 community clinics that serve the uninsured, will likely receive portions of the $38 million the tax is expected to generate.

The other 45% of the money will go to the University of California system for breast cancer research and 5% will be used for a California Cancer Registry.

Wile said research is needed to devise better ways to take pictures of the breast to locate tumors.

Finding a tumor in young women is like “finding a snowman in a snowstorm,” Wile said, because young women tend to have thicker breast tissues.

More research is also needed to determine if post-menopausal women should be denied hormone therapy that could prevent debilitating diseases, such as heart disease and osteoporosis, because of misplaced fear that hormones add to the risk of breast cancer, Wile said.