Christina Applegate has been diagnosed with an early stage of breast cancer, according to a statement put out by her representative. It sounds like it was caught early and that she should be fine after treatment. The 36 year-old actress has a family history of breast cancer. Her mother is a breast cancer survivor and underwent treatment and a mastectomy when Christina was a young girl. Christina is active with the Susan G Komen breast cancer foundation – my mother met her during a walk for the charity a few years ago – and it is likely that she goes for regular mammograms and checkups:
Christina Applegate has been diagnosed with an early form of breast cancer her rep confirmed Saturday.
“Benefitting from early detection through a doctor ordered MRI, the cancer is not life threatening,” the Emmy nominated Samantha Who? star’s rep said in a statement. “Christina is following the recommended treatment of her doctors and will have a full recovery.”
Applegate’s mother is a breast cancer survivor.
“The first time she was diagnosed I was a very young girl – probably 7. I’m not sure it really fully hit me at the time, but she had to undergo surgery and have a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery,” Applegate, 36, told USA Today in 2003.
“It was devastating for my mother to lose one of her breasts and have to go through all that,” Applegate said. “It is a very personal cancer for the women it affects. This is about women’s womanhood. It’s one of the aspects of our femininity.”
Breast cancer is currently the most common cancer in women and the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the 15-54 age group.
[From US Weekly]
Actress Cynthia Nixon recently disclosed that she had breast cancer in 2006 and that it was detected early and she is now cancer free. Nixon’s mother is a two time breast cancer survivor and helped her realize the importance of early detection.
While looking for photos for this story I found some exclusives at Bauer Griffin which were taken May 13 and show Christina at an “outpatient cancer clinic” at Cedars Sinai, where they say she stayed for two hours. It’s possible that she chose to wait to announce her cancer, like Cynthia Nixon, until after treatment was successful.
In early July, Applegate lost her ex boyfriend of over two years. 26-year-old Lee Grivas was found dead in his apartment of an apparent heroin overdose on July 1. Applegate issued a statement at the time saying that she was “profoundly saddened” by his death. She is now thought to be dating a bass player who hails from Holland.
Applegate has gone through a lot this year, and our thoughts are with her for a quick recovery.
Christina Applegate is shown in the header on May 13 outside Cedars Sinai. Credit: JRI/JF2/bauergriffinonline.com. She is shown below at the “Over Her Dead Body” Los Angeles Premiere on 1/29/08. Credit: Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos
Maybe I’m being petty, but is it necessary to run such a boob-emphasizing photo, given the news? Referring to the second photo, I mean. You can’t help but look at her ta-tas.
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edit note by Celebitchy: The photo CandyKay refers to here has been replaced.
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I’m sorry to hear this about her. She’s one of my favorite actresses, actually. My prayers for a full recovery go out for her.
My best friend died suddenly from undiagnosed breast cancer a couple of years ago and it was devastating to all who loved her. She always had perfect, beautiful breasts even in high school, and the idea that they somehow killed her is just hard to escape.
Why does it seem the longer cancer research goes on, the higher the cancer rate climbs?
same here candykay.
all the best to her. it sure is hard with a family history of breast cancer and you kinda know it´s gonna hit you eventually.
I’ll take out the second picture and replace it with an event photo. It really didn’t occur to me about her boobs and I was just looking through that photo set from the hospital of two pictures that showed her the clearest.
thanks CB
Sure, I should have realized that.
Knowledge is power.
I hope she does will with her treatment.
my grandma had breastcancer, but it was benign in the end…but it was quite the shock at first. i am 26 now and i think i should have a mammo rather sooner than later, but i am kinda afraid.
Has your Mom been diagnosed Anni?
not yet. she has mammos on a regular basis though, her doctor advised her to, but i read somewhere that it can skip a generation. anyways, i just hope and pray none of us will get it.
Guess it’s easier to make people pay for mammograms than it is to punish the companies that have been slowly poisoning us over the years to the point where genetic damage is taken as natural and a generational recurrence. I’m not belittling anyone’s illness or struggle, but it seems to me not enough focus in being put into discovering and ending the real underlying causes.
Too sad. If the breast cancer is in the early stages, will she have to go thru chemo?
True Vdantev, Great point. My Mom’s cancer was caused by hormone replacement therapy.(estrogen)
My Mom had a lumpectomy in 1988, her cancer was malignant. Four of her lymph nodes were removed. She opted for radiation, not Chemo and was cancer free for almost twenty years.
Because of my Mom’s diagnosis, I started having mammograms at age 31. I did have an MRI instead of a mommogram one year and it was a bitch!
But MRI’s are much better at finding cancer early than mammograms. Most insurance companies won’t cover an MRI due to the cost of the test.
I’m glad this was caught early. I feel sad for women who cannot afford mammograms for early detection, though. (This is not a reflection on Applegate, she does do good work for the Komen Foundation!)
I’m only 37, but because of a family history and some anomalies that were found a few years ago, I have to go yearly. I’ve had the regular kind, the OMG OUCH! kind and the ultrasound, but never an MRI. Even at that, though, and WITH insurance, I still have to cough up around $400 each time (the coinsurance for the actual mammogram, the hospital facilities and the doctor who reads the screens).
Isn’t that crazy? That’s WITH insurance, people.
They do have these mobile breast cancer screening buses that go around and I think that’s great, but probably underutilized by women in general.
I don’t know what the answer is, I just wish health care weren’t in such shambles around here.
And I do wish Applegate well. Good actress, good person.
Good luck to Christina. Hopefully since it’s early she will be just fine. My grammie detected hers early and she is ok. Of course, chemo was hell. I was young and she was so brave we barely saw her suffer!
Don’t even get me started on health care in the US. Insurance companies are criminals and socialized medicine does NOT mean we are going to end up a socialist/welfare state. Schools are socialized so why not the only thing we have as individuals: our health. I guarantee if mentally ill people were cared for and monitored for free the numbers of kidnappings, murders and other violent crimes would go down.
BTW, to keep the cancer away my grandma has to take a ton of pills her friends smuggle her from Canada. She could not afford them here in what we like to pretend is the freest nation in the world.
Poor her. But good for her of being so aware and cautious and having caught it early. I hope she makes it through the treatment with as little discomfort as possible and that she will fully recover. My thoughts go out to her.
My local hospital offers free mammograms at certain times during the year to women who are uninsured or underinsured. Hopefully it will not be long before everyone in the US has access to affordable health care. It’s despicable that people should be denied the treatment or preventive care they need because they are poor.
I wish her a full and speedy recovery
it really is ridiculous. i had a friend who died at 28. she had a lump and reported to the doctor – “you are fine and you don’t need a mammogram, you are too young”. she eventually went for another opinion but it was too far gone. she died about a year later.
My condolences. Best wishes in fighting it, Miss Applegate.
Bad news, that’s really tough. Good wishes to her, hope she comes through it ok.
Good point vdantev, the incidence of breast cancer is much more common now. Other factors definitely at play here.
re: vdantev’s comment – I’m kind of amazed at the number of female musicians who have been diagnosed breast cancer and think there must be some tie-in with the equipment they’re exposed to.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/08/electricity-may-cause-cancer-leukaemia-depression-etc/
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE7DF113AF934A2575AC0A967958260
Wishing her all the best for a complete recovery. My first thought on reading this was, “What? No!”
That being said, we women need to realize that BRCA is not the only danger, and it is one of the most easily detectable female cancers. My personal mission is ovarian cancer awareness, although I am also cautious about breast, as my maternal great grandmother had a bilateral mastectomy.
Women are at more risk from reproductive cancers, particularly ovarian and uterine, because they are not easily found and usually it’s too late. The only thing a Pap smear is good for is detecting HPV/cancerous cells on the cervix. I lost my aunt to OVCA nearly five years ago and so every six months I endure a “delightful” transvaginal ultrasound.
The only ones who can really take charge of our health is us. Good for Christina for being vigilant. Let’s all follow her example.
*Pardon me. Just going to move my soapbox out of the way here.* 😉
My heart goes out to her and her family. I know first-hand what it feels like to hear about a family member or friend who has cancer. It runs VERY high in my family and my stomach churns whenever I hear news about someone/anyone who has cancer. You’re young and strong, Christina, and I pray you have a speedy recovery.
I always had such respect to her since she never opted to pull publicity stunts and never was an attention seeker.
I hope she will overcome this.
There is something worng when such a young woman has cancer.
We have to invest in cancer research.
That is so sad! I love her a lot… I did when she “was” Kelly Bundy and I`m so happy for her that she `s so in the game with her new show and will be after all this horrible stuff is over!
Enn, I totally agree. I can’t afford transvaginal u/s every six months, though. I’m still paying for the coinsurance on the last one, which found nothing. (And the abdominal u/s, too, which found nothing.) I’ve had an unexplained pain around my left ovary for over a year now and no one can tell me what it is. The next step is an MRI, which I can barely afford, but I owe it to my family to have it done anyway.
Hopefully she survives this, because I’d be upset if she didn’t. My prayers are with her and her family.
My God Anastasia, keep us updated on your condition.
daisy, you are sweet. I will. I just want some resolution on it. Thanks.
@CB
Lengthy exposure to intense electromagnetic waves, say through stereo speakers and microphones can lead to cancer development. You’re on the right track.
Anastasia, you know when something is not right with your body. Get the MRI, and dammit, if we have to set up a PayPal account to help you defray the costs, I’ll be the first in line. Can you possibly get to a Planned Parenthood for 1) less expensive testing and 2) another opinion? This country’s healthcare setup is a disgrace. (I don’t want to start a flame war, but PP is not just for pregnancy terminations. They also provide lower cost reproductive care to women who need it, from pregnancy and STD testing to procedures and tests.)
Please keep us updated, and I’ll pray for you.
(The only reason I get away with the 6 month US is because of my family history and the fact that I had a silver dollar-sized complex cyst removed from my left ovary in November 2006. No chances.)
My prayers to everyone here who is going through the desperate fight against cancer (in every form) or who are helping someone else through it. And to those who have lost the fight.
We buried a close friend of the family this past June who lost her fight to cancer.
It started out as breast cancer and she had a mastectomy…but they didn’t do any chemo (or radiation) afterwards, and the cancer came back as non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
I hope the prognosis for Ms. Applegate is as optimistic as it sounds, and maybe it might help her (spirits) to know that her diagnosis is generating a lot of important discussion about women and cancer.
Metastatic breast cancer is not the same cancer as Non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Most people who are diagnosed have NO family history
The disease is much more aggressive in younger women
Having BRCA/family history MAY get you early screening from your insurance company
Please don’t assume that catching it early is a guarantee. Every breast cancer has a different pathology and every person will respond differently to treatment and I have watched friends who were early stage and with non-invasive tumors (stage 0) get mets. For her publicist to release this statement that it is not life threatening is not only incredibly ignorant, but also very irresponsible. Also to say that she will have a full recovery just makes it sound like catching it early is a guarantee for survival and minimizes the severity of the situation.
Enn: you are awesome for saying what you said. I do have coverage and the MIR is already scheduled, I’ll just pay the coinsurance in payments over time. I’m doing it! I won’t let my husband and daughter down by not taking care of potential problems, I can tell you that. They deserve better and so do I. It’s just a shame I have to calcuate what this will cost and for how many months I’ll be paying on it.
Thank you for your kind words and prayers, seriously. You have mine, as well.
I wish her a speedy recovery. I really like Christina Applegate. She is a great artist. I love Samantha, Who?
My best friend died of metastatic breast cancer. She battled it for 6 years and there was no family history and she was an athlete on top of that (very healthy).
It’s a dreadful disease to all those involved in it: patient, family, friends, caregivers.
My prayers to Christina Applegate.
I wish Christina a speedy recovery and so happy they caught it in time! I’m sure her doctor recommended the MRI since of her family history. She is a great actress and we need more movies like The Sweetest Thing! 🙂
A quick comment for Anne above:
Even though athletes are healthy, being an athlete makes cancer metastasize at a faster rate unfortunately than people who are not athletes. I’m sorry you lost your friend. I’m sure that was hard for you.