Good News!

If you are on cross gender hormones like me there is some good news for us.

Article Review: Breast Cancer Development in Transsexual Subjects Receiving Cross-Sex Hormone Treatment
Open Minded Health

There’s a new study out from the Netherlands examining the prevalence of breast cancer in transgender people. Gooren et al found that trans women and trans men who have had hormone therapy may be at the same level of risk for breast cancer as cis men.
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For trans women, the development of breasts and increase in breast tissue might increase their risk for breast cancer. Trans women also receive estrogen and/or progesterone, which may affect an estrogen or progesterone sensitive cancer. This study’s authors found 8 cases of breast cancer in trans women in the medical literature, ranging from 1968 to 2013. Three of those cases appeared not to be related to hormones. The other five occurred within 5-10 years of starting hormone therapy. These cases also follow the (cis women) pattern of ductal carcinomas being the most common cancer.

For trans men, the presence of breast tissue is a risk, even after top surgery. Remember that top surgery does not remove all breast tissue! And estrogen levels continue to be at a “female” level, especially with testosterone’s ability to aromatize to estrogen. Or at least, estrogen levels continue to be at that level until an oophorectomy. Additionally, trans men may be reluctant to be screened for breast cancer because it’s deemed a “female” process and may aggravate dysphoria. 4 cases of breast cancer among trans men were found in the literature, from 2003 to 2012. The cancers were detected within 2-10 years of starting hormone therapy, and three of the four were ductal carcinomas.

The study had 2,307 male-to-female (MtF) and 795 female-to-male, the subjects ranged from 18 to 80 and they were on cross-sex hormones from between 5 to over 30 years. The Abstract conclusion is,

The number of people studied and duration of hormone exposure are limited but it would appear that cross-sex hormone administration does not increase the risk of breast cancer development, in either MtF or FtM transsexual individuals. Breast carcinoma incidences in both groups are comparable to male breast cancers. Cross-sex hormone treatment of transsexual subjects does not seem to be associated with an increased risk of malignant breast development.

One thing to remember is that it is believed that your chances of breast cancer increases with family history, dosage, and length of treatment. Also there are other diseases from our birth parts such as prostatic cancer and for our trans-brothers ovarian cancer that we should be tested. We should always let our medical providers know our history.