The words celebrities use carry an enormous amount of weight.
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 12, 2018
Martha lives in Illinois and was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in January 2015. She has a husband and three children, ranging in age from 12 to 18, a dog and a lizard.
This past week, in a televised interview, Olivia Newton-John spoke about her life with cancer. In the past, she has named her cancer as a return, or metastasis, of the breast cancer she was initially treated for two decades earlier.Whenever there is further spread, or progression, of breast cancer outside of the breast it means that efforts to control the cancer have failed, at least for the moment. Yet, as the news spread around the globe, I felt that outlets didn’t share the most basic facts about metastatic cancer. Instead, as in “USA Today,” the headline was “Olivia Newton-John Diagnosed With Cancer For The Third Time”.
On “Good Morning America,” cancer survivor and host Robin Roberts and Dr. Jennifer Ashton explained that cancer can metastasize/recur or there can be a second primary tumor. But in the specific case of Newton-John, who has said that the sites at her shoulder and the base of her spine, are returns of the breast cancer, there is little question that this is metastatic disease. As I watched the GMA clip, I thought it would have been helpful for the hosts to be specific about what metastatic disease is and why this is what Newton-John is facing. Although people can be diagnosed with multiple primary sites of the same or different cancers, when we're talking about breast cancer that has spread to the bones (or liver, lung, brain, etc.), it is metastatic cancer.
Newton-John is a symbol of hope and inspiration to many, so in some ways it is understandable that the press would be reluctant to use the terms metastatic, advanced, or stage 4 when she, herself, didn’t use them in the above-linked interview.
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