Mathew Knowles Battling Stage IA Breast Cancer
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and it could be a better time for Mathew Knowles, to come forward and share his own battle with the disease. Tuesday (Oct. 2, 2019) the father of Beyonce & Solange had a candid interview on Good Morning America with NFL Hall of Famer Michael Strahan to reveal publicly for the first time, that he has stage 1A breast cancer.
Knowles not only spoke on his personal bought with breast cancer, but explained how it was discovered and why he was a high risk. The music mogul told Strahan he hopes sharing his truth will inspire other men speak out and more importantly pay attention to the warning signs. His interview on GMA is below, where talks the being diagnosed in July this year.
Knowles wants other me to forget about the embarrassing stigma attached to male breast cancer, because the reality is, this is becoming more common in men and cancer doesn't discriminate. The music exec said he started finding spots of blood on his white T-shirts. After a few days of it not going away, he knew it was time to pay his doctor a visit.
The first thing his doctor did was get a smear of his blood, when results came back inconclusive, he had a mammogram and that's how they found the mass. From that point Knowles said his doctor did a biopsy and that's when he was diagnosed with breast cancer. What's interesting is Knowles had two different risk factors working against him.
Back in the 80's he worked in for the medical division of Xerox, selling Xeroradiography to radiologists. He later went on to work for Philips to sell selling MRI/CT scanners. So he was at risk working with radioactive equipment all those years. His greatest risk was already in his DNA. Knowles told Strahan,
"My mother’s sister died of breast cancer, my mother’s sister’s two and only daughters died of breast cancer and my sister-in-law died in March of breast cancer with three kids – a 9-, 11- and a 15-year-old -- and my mother-in-law had breast cancer. So breast cancer has been all around me. My wife's mother has breast cancer, too."
According to GMA, Knowles doctor did a smear of his blood first, when the results came back inconclusive, he had a mammogram, they found a mass. A biopsy was done and confirmed he had breast cancer. With his wife Gena at his side, of course the first people he called was his family, and former wife Tina. He had surgery and treatment on one breast and is scheduled to undergo surgery again in January.
Breast cancer specialist, Dr. John Kiluk, a surgical oncologist at The Center for Women's Oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center, told the GMA crew, "When it comes to breast cancer we really don’t know what causes it. We are trying hard to find what causes cancer. ... I think the one thing though that we do know is that there’s a strong genetic tie with cancer."
We wish Mr. Knowles the very best and a speedy recovery.