E-mail a friendDr. Olufunmilayo Olopade
airdate July 10, 2009
Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade is an international leader in breast cancer research. She's the founding director of the Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics at the University of Chicago, where she's been on the faculty since '91. Born in Nigeria, Olopade worked as a medical officer at the Nigerian Navy Hospital, before relocating to the U.S. for an internship and residency at Chicago's Cook County Hospital. Her specialty is in risk assessment, prevention, early detection and treatment of aggressive breast cancer in young women.
International leader in breast cancer research discusses the varying forms of cancer among different communities. (2:04)
Full interview. (8:52)
Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade
Tavis: Last month, my longtime producer and dear friend, Sheryl Flowers, lost her two-year battle with breast cancer at the young age of 42. She was afflicted with a strain of the disease known as triple negative which disproportionately affects African American women for some reason. Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade specializes in triple negative breast cancer at the University of Chicago Medical Center. She joins us tonight from Chicago. Dr. Olopade, nice to have you on this program.
Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade: Thanks for having me.
Tavis: Let me start by asking about your research, the work that you do specifically, and then I want to talk more expressly about triple negative. But tell me about your work with regard to cancer, and breast cancer specifically.
Dr. Olopade: Well, Tavis, I am a medical oncologist and treat women with breast cancer. But about 15 years ago, it became clear to me that we needed to do more work to prevent breast cancer, so I developed a cancer risk assessment program where we wanted to have women come in and talk to us about their family history of breast cancer or any other risk factors that they may have so that we can help them develop strategies to reduce their risk of dying from breast cancer.
My interest is in really trying to understand whether women have inherited genes that we can test for and, by testing for those genes, whether we can identify those at the highest risk.
Over the course of the 15 years, we've come to realize that there are in fact some genes that predispose to breast cancer, so we studied families, and I can tell you that, when we've identified women with BRC1 or BRC2 mutations and when they have come in to do preventative strategies to prevent dying from breast cancer, we've seen great successes.
But what's been frustrating is when we see young women like Sheryl who, at 40, really didn't have the strong family history, didn't have any reason to get breast cancer and come with a deadly form of the disease, it's very, very disappointing to us. That's really what got us to begin to focus on whether there are differences between populations in terms of the types of breast cancer that they get.
Because we work on the south side of Chicago, we see a diverse population of women and one of the things that we found out was that Black women were getting this type of triple negative aggressive breast cancer much more commonly than their white counterparts.
Tavis: Why is that? Do you know as yet?
Dr. Olopade: Well, that's really the million dollar question. You know, the last conversation I had with Sheryl was that, you know, she was an educated, well-trained, very knowledgeable woman and she developed triple negative breast cancer which was aggressive.
Prior to the time we started doing this work, there always used to be thoughts that the reason why Black women were dying disproportionately was because they had no insurance and they had no access. But our work has found is that it's really a collision of, you know, different things.
A cancer that grows very fast and then young women who aren't expected to get breast cancer because, for the longest time, the face of breast cancer that we've had was an older white woman with breast cancer.
Really when we started studying different populations, when Black women started coming forward to participate in the research, then we began to identify that breast cancer is no one disease and it doesn't affect women the same way. So there's a lot of work we have to do. We don't know why.
Tavis: What's your sense of the kind of energy, the kind of effort, the kind of resources that are being put in to broaden this field of study? I say broaden because, to your earlier point, not unlike with the case years ago with HIV/AIDS. They thought it was a gay, white male disease and all the money, all the research, all the attention went that way.
We now know differently. HIV/AIDS is killing a whole different kind of people, a whole different population of this country. So what's your sense of how we're doing now expanding the conversation about breast cancer beyond a particular group to include in fact women of color?
Dr. Olopade: Well, the fact that I'm on your show is a big step forward and that's really why I wanted to come because we need to get the word out there. We need to really talk about the successes we've had in terms of treating breast cancer. It really is not a death sentence anymore, but we still have challenges, challenges like the type of breast cancer that Sheryl had which grows fast and can rapidly become aggressive.
Because it affects Black women in a way that is different, I think that we need to get the word out there. You know, when a young Black woman feels a lump, instead of blowing it off and saying, "Well, you know, I'm too young to get breast cancer," they need to be running to find a doctor.
You know, it's not even just Black women who develop triple negative breast cancer. Any woman can develop this type of breast cancer and that's why we're emphasizing that we've all got to come together. We can't say that breast cancer is curable now and so let's not worry about it.
We have to find out what the different types of breast cancers are, how it affects people from different race ethnic backgrounds and we have to get Black women to become a little bit more engaged in the research process so that we can study more of them. By studying more of them, they will become part of the solution.
Tavis: What's your sense of how this conversation fits into the larger conversation about healthcare for all Americans that we're having as we speak?
Dr. Olopade: Well, it's really very important to me because I work on the south side of Chicago and it's really amazing how many women without insurance come through our emergency room to be treated for breast cancer and often it's too late by the time they show up in the emergency room.
If family care doctors know about breast cancer, if women who are high-risk can get access to a family care doctor or a family doctor who will know about their family history - I have women whose mother died of breast cancer at 34 and they just sit there waiting to get breast cancer because they have no insurance. They just graduated out of college.
So I think it's really important to begin to get everyone to have access to family care. We as the oncologists need to work with family care doctors to train them on how to identify individuals who are high-risk because breast cancer, if you actually catch it early, is still curable.
Tavis: She's one of the leading experts in the country on breast cancer focusing specifically these days on what killed our dear friend, Sheryl Flowers, triple negative breast cancer. She's connected with the University of Chicago Medical Center. Her name, Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade. Dr. Olopade, nice to have you on the program. Thanks for all your research and thanks for sharing your insight on this program tonight.
Dr. Olopade: Thank you.
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