THE CANCER THAT'S HARD TO DETECT

More difficult to notice and poorly understood, lobular breast cancer is finally coming under the spotlight

- ALI GRAVES

Lobular breast cancer, also known as invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC), is more common than ovarian and skin cancer yet there is little awareness of it. According to Cancer Research UK, one in seven women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime and around 15% of those will have ILC. BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire, 56, was diagnosed with the disease in 2015.

ILC is different to the most common form of ductal breast cancer. Instead of starting in the breast ducts, it starts in the lobules, the glands that produce milk, and grows in a spider's web pattern. Cancer cells infect the tissue around the glands and rarely show in lumps, so it is harder to spot and likely to be diagnosed later.

At least a fifth of ILC cases return years later. When this happens, the cancer becomes even harder to treat. And yet it’s an under-diagnosed subtype of breast cancer that is underfunded and poorly understood.

Kate Ford, a campaigner from the Lobular Moon Shot Project (LMSP), says, "The basic biology of this disease has never been studied and it has no specific treatment. ILC needs a moon shot approach - a fast injection of cash - to research funding."

On 24 June, 22 women led by LMSP Founder Dr Susan Michaelis, who sadly passed away from ILC on 9 July, held a vigil outside 10 Downing Street and delivered a petition backed by more than 350 MPs to the Prime Minister, calling for urgent funding for ILC research.

1 SYMPTOMS TO WATCH OUT FOR