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Sally Wolf Speaks Out on Healthcare Inequities Impacting Young Breast Cancer Patients

Sally Wolf/LinkedIn

Jun 13, 2025, 22:18

Sally Wolf Speaks Out on Healthcare Inequities Impacting Young Breast Cancer Patients

Sally Wolf, CEO and Founder of LightWorks, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“MTV VJ Ananda Lewis’ death is especially tragic for multiple reasons, all of which deserve our attention so we can improve systemic inequities in healthcare:

1. Far too many younger women are being diagnosed. Ananda was first diagnosed at 45, and died at 52. And she wasn’t alone. Far too many are being diagnosed with breast cancer in our 40s and even 20s and 30s. In fact, the rate of diagnosis among women under 50 increased 1.4% annually from 2012-2021. Despite this, many are still told they’re ‘too young’ by doctors (!) even when they have palpable lumps. No one is too young. No lump should be dismissed without proper screening. Ever.

2.Longtime healthcare injustices impact today’s patients. Ananda publicly shared she decided to skip traditional early stage surgery after her initial diagnosis. While she recently shared she was at peace with this decision, it’s important to consider how history impacts why she may have done that. She shared she saw flaws in how her mom was treated for cancer and preferred a different path. Beyond that, decades of healthcare inequity and injustices have created understandable mistrust in our healthcare systems within the black community. This can elevate reluctance to seek care and/or suspicion of provider recommendations once care is sought.

3. Clinical trials are still not fully equitable. I learned this back in 2019 when I sat in a room of 8 women, all of us metastatic breast cancer patients on the same medicine. When I raised my hand to ask why there were no women of color in the room, the answer shocked me: ‘This room reflects the clinical trial.’ Part of this ties to access, and part ties to the systemic trust challenges detailed above. In both cases, we need to do better. The best way to ensure drug efficacy for all is to begin with representative trials.

I’ll add that several obituaries I’ve seen have excluded the word ‘metastatic’ – which is by definition, with breast cancer, when it has spread anywhere outside of the chest area. It’s this distant spread that makes MBC incurable.

While many of us living with MBC are benefiting from new research and medicines, the MBC stats are still devastating: 42K die annually in the US; median survival is 3 years, and only 32% survive 5 years. As a 7+ year Stage IV thriver, I am acutely aware of how fortunate I am, and with that feel a deep responsibility to help others understand that despite great advances, our breast cancer problem is far from solved.

If you’d like me to elaborate on any of the above in future posts please share questions below.

And if this helped you better understand MBC, please share and/or follow for more on survivorship and advocacy.”

Sally Wolf

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Sally Wolf Speaks Out on Healthcare Inequities Impacting Young Breast Cancer Patients

“MTV VJ Ananda Lewis’ death is especially tragic for multiple reasons, all of which deserve our attention so we can improve systemic inequities in healthcare:

I’ll add that several obituaries I’ve seen have excluded the word ‘metastatic’ – which is by definition, with breast cancer, when it has spread anywhere outside of the chest area. It’s this distant spread that makes MBC incurable.

If you’d like me to elaborate on any of the above in future posts please share questions below.

And if this helped you better understand MBC, please share and/or follow for more on survivorship and advocacy.”