I didn't know men were affected by breast cancer”: Four-five cases within the year at QKUK

“What I see, I don't like” It was words that stunned Vallon during a medical visit.

He had never thought that men could develop breast cancer until he was diagnosed with it.

The family! What I'm going to leave it!” was the first thing that had ever occurred to the father of two children.

Often wrongly perceived as women's disease, breast cancer affects men.

Up to 1 percent of the cases diagnosed are men, according to the World Health Organization.

I thought mammography was only women”

Vallon was 38 when he was diagnosed with the disease. A very common game with his son had become an excuse for visiting a doctor.

When we were playing, suddenly, my son jumped into my chest. I felt a great pain, unfathomable pain, but I didn't speak to anyone... I went to the bathroom, touched my chest, and I saw that I had a berry”, he remembers Radio Free Europe.

He had immediately started to go through websites. With information that appeared to her, she also had frequent heart rate.

“A affects breast cancer and men... Everything I read, I noticed in my body”

Dylemies and doubts did not last long and turned to the University Clinical Centre of Kosovo.

Following successive tests, he was also recommended to do the mammography of a X - ray examination used to detect and diagnose breast disease.

I thought mammography was only women, not men”, recalls today 40-year-old.

As the result came up, the radiologist told me: What I see, I don't like”.

At first, he felt distrust, anxiety, and sadness over the news that “had not thought he would ever hear”.

The doctors told her that her breast cancer was in her third stage, or in an aggressive stage.

I didn't feel right, but I didn't have time to think much of”, says Valon.

And as the doctors recommended, he underwent the first operation, not knowing he would need the second one.

Uh, a lot of things have crossed my mind. The children were young”

“E, what if I don't make it?”, had thought against the optimism it said there was.

A few months after the first surgery at QKUUK and treatment with therapy, tests showed him that the disease had not completely withdrawn.

It also needed surgery to completely remove the bay and remove several other problems that had caused it.

It was a very difficult operation and in Kosovo it was not, due to rare cases... After several consultations, I found a doctor in Skopje. And, that year, I was his six-x1th patient, Valon says.

To overcome his illness completely, he believes that his positiveity also helped him.

Two years later, while continuing to receive it from a tablet a day, it says that life has been returned normally, and “probably with more momentum”.

No symptoms, no changes in the body, should be neglected, Vallon says.

That's what health professionals call.

Five Cases in 2023

Gender cancer is problematic in men, as in women, says KKUK's Oncology Clinic Director Ilir Kurtishi.

Because men are reluctant to visit the doctor and because of misunderstandings that only women may have breast cancer, their cancer is usually more advanced at the time it is diagnosed, he says.

They [men] appear to the doctor only when they are in pain and when they have movement problems of”, says Kurtishi.

In the clinic he runs, five new cases of breast cancer men were recorded last year, compared to four cases in 2022. By 2012, there were about 30 cases in total.

The average age of these people is around 40”, says Kurtishi for Radio Free Europe.

The factors that cause this disease in men are hormonals, according to him, but “is also linked to genetic and external factors, such as physical inactivity, smoking, alcohol, and others”.

Symptoms include grains in its breast or swelling, frying or irritating the skin around the breast, pain, and so forth.

How is breast cancer treated in men?

Treating breast cancer in men follows the same procedures in women.

According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, treatment depends on the size of cancer and its spread.

Treatment may include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and hormonal therapy.

In 2022, Queen's University in Belfast started the largest breast cancer study in men through DNA.

Researchers hope to understand the disease better in order to improve prevention, early detection, and treatment.

The World Health Organization estimates that 99% of breast cancers are diagnosed in women.

In 2022, according to O BSH, there were 2.3 million women diagnosed with breast cancer and 660,000 deaths worldwide.

In Kosovo, according to data providing Radio Europe Free from the OncKU Clinic, a total of 461 breast cancer cases were registered last year.

This clinic is the only centre in Kosovo, where cancer victims receive chemotherapy or other treatments needed for them.

The number of those who receive control or services there goes to about 50,000 a year.

The clinic has about 60 beds, and the drugs are occasionally lacking, which forces patients either to postpone treatment or to buy them themselves.

Despite life's challenges and dynamics, however, Vallon calls each to be checked by a doctor at least once a year.

There's a lot of stress... We do not know where we live and in what environment we breathe”, he says, and he shows that he has learned a lesson from his experience:

“Long-term jobs are not good. Better be short-term plans that can be achieved”.