13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |Avon man speaks out about male breast cancer

Avon man speaks out about male breast cancer

Indianapolis - We know about the risk of breast cancer in women, but men need to be vigilant about the disease as well.

The lifetime risk of breast cancer in women is 1-in-8, and closer to 1-in-100 in men. While more rare, in about every other comparison, the battle is the same, but men lose more often.

Terry Mautner of Avon wears his pink shirt without shame.

"It says, 'Real men wear pink'," he read.

He's a man who has survived breast cancer.

"The reaction is always surprising, 'I didn't even know men could get breast cancer'," Mautner said.

Neither did Mautner when, at 48 years old, something didn't feel right.

"I felt a lump in my left breast and I think, what is typical for guys, is 'It's nothing, it will go away'," he said.

At his diagnosis, Mautner was at stage two.

"His initial breast cancer was in his left breast and then he had a local reoccurrence that was in the area of the left armpit," said Dr. George Sledge at IU Simon Cancer Center.

A delayed diagnosis is common in men, because they don't get mammograms, so lumps are found when they are larger and men have less breat tissue for tumors to grow in, so tumors spread.

Mautner sees his doctors at the IU Simon Cancer Center every six months. He's had a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation.

"Fortunately, in Terry's case, this recent X-ray shows no evidence of the spread of this disease," Sledge said.

Mautner also speaks out. Doctors say awareness of risk is key to improving survival rates, which are slightly lower in men.

"One of the things we've learned, and this is a fairly recent observation, just in the last few years, is that a type of mutation called a BRCA2 mutation is associated not just with a much higher risk of breast cancer in women, but also a higher risk of breast cancer in men," Sledge said. "So if a man is a part of a family where it appears to be an inherited predisposition for cancer, where many women in the family have had either breast or ovarian cancer, that man is probably at a little higher risk for getting breast cancer himself."

Mautner is now 57, has been cancer-free for two years and is markign life's moments with gratitude.

"To see my daughter married two weeks ago, my only daughter, and that was a great opportunity," he said.