How First Lady Betty Ford and surgeon Bernie Fisher revolutionized America’s attitude toward breast cancer

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It is rare that an ABC Movie of the Week endures. Buzz Kulik’s 1971 “Brian’s Song” is a notable exception. 

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Stacy Wentworth, MD
Clinical associate, Department of Radiation Oncology, Duke University School of Medicine; Host and producer, Less Radical podcast, which covers the story of Bernie Fisher and the NSABP
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Despite steady progress in reducing overall cancer mortality rates, cancer incidence in women is rising, according to the American Cancer Society’s “Cancer Statistics, 2025” report. Incidence rates in women 50-64 years of age have surpassed those in men, and rates in women under 50 are now 82% higher than their male counterparts, up from 51% higher in 2002. In 2021, for the first time, lung cancer incidence was higher in women under 65 than in men. 
In patients with high-risk HER2-positive breast cancer, post-surgery, or adjuvant, treatment with trastuzumab emtansine, also referred to as T-DM1) reduced the long-term risk of death or invasive disease by 46% and improved survival compared to trastuzumab alone, according to the final results of the phase III KATHERINE clinical trial led by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. 
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Stacy Wentworth, MD
Clinical associate, Department of Radiation Oncology, Duke University School of Medicine; Host and producer, Less Radical podcast, which covers the story of Bernie Fisher and the NSABP

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