Adolescent and Young Adult Breast Cancer

Dr. Rebecca Johnson is a pediatric oncologist/hematologist at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma, Washington. She specializes in treating childhood blood disorders and cancer in kids, teens, and young adults. While at Seattle Children’s Hospital, she founded the adolescent and young adult oncology program and is now building a similar program at Mary Bridge.  Dr. Johnson was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 27 years old. This personal experience helped shape her research interests, which include patient engagement, cancer epidemiology, and unmet needs and barriers to care among adolescents and young adults. Earlier this year, Dr. Johnson and colleagues wrote a clinical review of breast cancer in adolescent and young adult women that was published in the Journal of Oncology Practice. Listen to the episode to hear Dr. Johnson discuss: why the number of younger women diagnosed with breast cancer is going up, as well as the size of the increase issues that are more challenging for younger women with breast cancer reconstruction options for very young women her advice for a newly diagnosed adolescent or young woman