Breast cancer diagnosed at age 35, Chrissy Amitrano encourages younger women to get baseline screening

At age 35, Chrissy Amitrano of Lake Ronkonkoma was incredulous — and symptom-free and pain-free — when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She’d just gone in for a precautionary mammogram ultrasound.

"It was very shocking," said Amitrano, now 40. "I thought I was living a healthy lifestyle. I had no reason to believe that I had breast cancer. I didn’t feel a lump. I didn’t feel sick, anything like that. ... was very scared and worried."

Amitrano, whose Stage 2 cancer is gone (the term "in remission" is seldom used anymore, her oncologist said) after chemotherapy, surgeries, radiation, more chemo, a clinical trial and a hormone-blocking pill, is among a growing number of women who are developing breast cancer at a younger age. And there’s no clear reason why.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in August that although most breast cancers were in older women, the rates among those under 45 had been slowly going up.

In 2022, the CDC reported, there were 27,136 new cases in that age bracket — the rate of change increased, on average, 0.7% annually from 2001 to 2022. The overall incidence rate was stable from 2001 to 2012, then it went up 1.1% each year from 2012 to 2022.

"In general, we think of cancer as a disease of aging, but we know that there is an increased incidence of cancer in younger people," said Dr. Jules Cohen, Amitrano’s oncologist at Stony Brook Cancer Center. It’s not just breast cancer for which younger people are getting diagnoses at a younger age, he said; colorectal cancers also are skewing younger.

It’s not known why cancer is occurring earlier, Cohen said, adding that part of the upward trend can be attributed to better detection technology and more frequent screenings, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. It could be due to the environmental exposure to carcinogens in ground, air and food, including hormones in the food supply, Cohen said.

Whatever the cause, catching cancer earlier is key, he said: The majority of Stony Brook’s early-stage breast cancer patients are cured, as Amitrano appears to have been.

Youngest patient

Amitrano, who was diagnosed in October 2020, recalled going to Stony Brook Cancer Center for treatment, and the other patients being treated for cancer were all older.

"I was definitely the youngest there when I was going through treatment," she said. "I only saw older people there. ... I couldn’t believe I was there, because I thought I was so healthy leading up to that point. So it was kind of surreal."

The road to that surreality began with a routine test.

She’d sought a mammogram at age 34 as a baseline because her mother, a retired nurse, had been adopted, so the maternal family medical background wasn’t known. But her medical insurance wouldn't cover it then, so she waited until age 35.

New York State law requires insurers to cover one baseline mammogram — the kind Amitrano got — for those ages 35 to 39, an annual mammogram for those 40 and older, and mammograms regardless of age for those who are at increased risk due to factors like family history.

When she got the call delivering the test result of suspicious lesions, she was terrified.

"I was at work, and I went into my office, and I was crying hysterically," she said.

Amitrano, who had been a physical education and health teacher, later switched to become an MRI tech, a career she decided on after her experience with cancer.

In her recovery, she ran the New York City Marathon in 2023 and raised about $4,500 for Stony Brook’s Carol M. Baldwin Breast Care Center.

She hopes her experience encourages younger women to get screened for breast cancer.

"I know myself back then would have never, ever thought that it could be something that I could have in my 30s," she said.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.