12
Questions about hormones, mentions body parts and cancer.
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
My mother passed away from young aggressive breast cancer 2 years ago. I have done a fair bit of research to try and determine my relative risk of developing it.
Sadly, trying to determine relative breast cancer risk of trans fems is confusing, conflicting, and tiresome. The science has until relatively recently been heavily biased and made many assumptions about trans fem people. A lot of earlier studies state that there is essentially 0 risk of trans women developing it. They usually say it has something to do with the Y chromosome or with the prostate. This has always failed to take into account exactly how breast cancer develops, the factors that influence it, and the way that trans fem bodies are different from cis male ones.
More modern research shows that trans fems undergoing long-term HRT have a similar rate of breast cancer to AFAB people. If you have family history, there is a stronger risk of you developing it. This becomes even more relevant if your family history involves young onset, stage 4, and fatality associated with breast cancer. All those factors are significantly more relevant than most others. Current best medical practice is to treat transfems undergoing long-term HRT as having risks comparable to cis women of the same age range and family history risk factor.
I personally take progesterone and have for a couple years now. I don't intend to stop as of now either. The body of research showing harm isn't substantial enough and is usually based on how it affects people undergoing HRT in menopause. How it affects young trans fems is not established.
I am planning to do BRCA gene testing within the next year to get some assessment of my inherent breast cancer risk. If you have family history, you can ask your doctor to have the tests done on you as well. Those results will at least give you advance warning so you can do more screenings and plan accordingly if you do develop it.