When Margaret Lopreiato was first diagnosed with breast cancer, her family history of cancer didn’t render her surprised, however, the feelings of fear and uncertainty still made an appearance. “I knew in my family history, we saw somewhere along the line, we’ve got cancer,” says Margaret, whose father passed away from throat cancer, and mother had bladder and bowel cancer before passing away. Margaret’s older sister has battled leukemia as well, and her two nieces have been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Thankfully, the three of them are fine now, Margaret says, but unfortunately, the cancer journey is not a new thing for her. Margaret was 50-years-old when she went to get a breast screen, which led to a biopsy, and ultimately, a doctor told Margaret that she had breast cancer. She was diagnosed with Stage two, hormone positive and HER-2 positive breast cancer.
Margaret received surgery to remove a lump in her breast, and that’s when her doctor, , looked at her tissues to determine that she was a candidate for the PROSPECT clinical trial. PROSPECT is a clinical trial which will use a new technology, breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), in combination with review of pathological features of the breast tumour to prospectively identify women who can safely avoid radiotherapy because their risk of local recurrence is very low. Now that Margaret has participated in PROSPECT and completed her 10-year surveillance last year, she reflects on her experience saying that.
