Weiss warns of breast cancer care gap after treatment

Marisa Weiss, founder and Chief Medical Officer at Breastcancer.org, told Healthline in an Oct. 16 perspective interview that 85%-90% of people with breast cancer have no known family history.

Evidence grade: Claim (no study cited) for Weiss’s account of post-treatment gaps. The stakes are high: 2024 WHO data cited by Healthline estimate 694,000 annual deaths from breast cancer, with about 8.2 million women globally living with a diagnosis.

Weiss said awareness campaigns have made breast cancer highly visible, but have not produced the same level of public understanding about risk, treatment decisions and survivorship. “It’s good that awareness is high, but knowledge remains low,” she said in the Healthline article.

The biggest gap, Weiss said, comes after initial treatment ends, when scheduled care often becomes less intensive and patients confront questions about symptoms, work, family and recurrence. Speaking from her own experience after a stage 1 breast cancer diagnosis 16 years ago, she said: “I had the best care possible, and there were still gaps. You can find yourself alone with lots of questions and fears.”

Healthline described Weiss as a physician who has treated breast cancer patients for more than 30 years and founded Breastcancer.org in 2000. The organization provides expert-reviewed medical and lifestyle information on breast health and breast cancer.

Weiss said shared decision-making requires patients to prepare for appointments and explain personal priorities that may affect care, including family plans, work and other life circumstances. “Decision-making is supposed to be shared,” she said.

She also said some people use GLP-1s, peptides, hormonal therapies, supplements or medical cannabis without telling their doctors. Healthline attributed that point partly to Breastcancer.org’s annual Pulse survey, which it said found interest in those areas and reliance on online information.

Weiss said the issue matters because some of those choices can interact with cancer medicines and may be associated with adverse or unexpected side effects. The Healthline article did not provide the Pulse survey’s sample size, detailed methodology or rates of use for those products.

Peer communities can help answer practical questions, Weiss said, but she cautioned that another person’s experience may not apply to a different diagnosis or treatment plan. “People can be very ardent about what they did in their situation, but each person’s situation is unique. There’s only one you.”

The article also discussed artificial intelligence. Weiss said Breastcancer.org uses AI for tasks including finding citations and interpreting pathology reports, while warning that health information needs careful checking: “When it comes to health information, every word matters.”

The claims apply most directly to people living with or after breast cancer treatment and to those supporting them. They do not establish how common post-treatment information gaps are, because the article is an expert interview and editor’s letter rather than a study measuring patient outcomes.

Source: Perspective interview, Healthline News, Oct. 16, 2026.

Atlas360 reports health research and does not provide medical advice.