The Office star Jenna Fischer shared via social media that she was diagnosed with Stage I triple-positive breast cancer last year and is now cancer-free after completing treatment.

 

“October is breast cancer awareness month,” Fischer, 50, wrote on Instagram. “I never thought I’d be making an announcement like this but here we are. Last December, I was diagnosed with Stage I Triple Positive Breast Cancer. After completing surgery, chemotherapy and radiation I am now cancer free. I wanted a photo of myself in my patchy pixie looking happy and healthy to go along with this news.”

 

 

Fischer, who played Pam on the mockumentary sitcom series The Office, said a routine mammogram she underwent in October 2023 was inconclusive due to dense breast tissue. After an ultrasound, her doctor found something in her breast and ordered a biopsy.

 

Two months later, Fischer learned she had Stage I triple-positive breast cancer, an aggressive subtype of HER2-positive cancer that accounts for about 10% of all breast cancer diagnoses, according to MD Anderson Cancer Center. Triple-positive breast cancer grows quickly and typically requires surgery, such as a mastectomy or lumpectomy, plus radiation, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy and medications targeting the HER2 protein.

 

Thanks to early detection, Fischer’s cancer had not spread to her lymph nodes or elsewhere. She had a lumpectomy to remove the tumor before undergoing 12 weeks of chemotherapy and three weeks of radiation.

 

“I’m happy to say I’m feeling great,” she wrote.

 

Fischer encourages others to prioritize their annual mammograms and to ask their doctor to utilize the Breast Cancer Risk Assessment (BCRAT) tool—a questionnaire that helps estimate a woman’s risk of developing invasive breast cancer within the next five years and within her lifetime.

 

“My tumor was so small it could not be felt on a physical exam,” Fischer wrote. “If I had waited six months longer, things could have been much worse. It could have spread.”

 

Earlier this year, actress Olivia Munn, 43, revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer following a routine mammogram and BCRAT. She underwent four surgeries, including a double mastectomy. Without the BCRAT, Munn said, she wouldn’t have found her cancer until her next scheduled mammogram the following year.

 

“You already know how much I love you and how incredibly proud of you I am,” Munn commented on Fischer’s post. “But I just want to say it again; I love you and by sharing your story you’re helping so many women and saving so many lives. You’re just the best.”

 

Fischer thanked her many friends and family who supported her throughout her cancer journey. She thanked her husband, Lee Kirk, and children, who stood by her side from start to finish. To celebrate her last chemotherapy and radiation treatments she rang a bell in the family’s backyard while her husband and children showered her with confetti.

 

“It takes a village to fight cancer, and I have had an amazing village,” Fischer wrote.

 

After being rescreened recently, Fischer is cancer-free and said she will “continue to be treated and monitored to help me stay that way.”

 

“Again, don’t skip your mammogram. Take it from Pam and her Pams. Michael was right. Get ’em checked ladies. And know that should you get a breast cancer diagnosis, there is a village waiting to care for you.”

 

For more details on this type of cancer, check out the Cancer Health Basics on Breast Cancer. And to read more related articles, click #Breast Cancer. There, you’ll find headlines such as “Mammograms in Their 40s? Told of Pros and Cons, Some Women Prefer to Wait,” “Young Breast Cancer Patient’s Self-Exam and Self-Advocacy Lead to Cancer Diagnosis” and “Breast Cancer Mortality Continues Three-Decade Decline but Disparities Remain.”