Research Is the Reason I Could Make Decisions Without Regret

Diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer at age 30, Loren Dent leaned on research to advocate for herself and find confidence in her decisions

Loren Dent was supposed to be soaking up the California sunshine with her girlfriend, Steph, on a long-overdue two-week vacation—her first real break in three years since starting a demanding job in the federal government.

Instead, she found herself at home, weighing one big decision after another. The morning that they were due to leave, Steph came down with COVID-19, so they canceled. Then came a phone call that would change everything: Loren’s biopsy results were in.

The radiologist rattled off a string of medical terminology—including the phrase “invasive ductal carcinoma”—until Loren finally interrupted and asked directly: “Do I have cancer?”

The answer was yes.

“You know when you go for a biopsy that there’s a chance that the call is going to come back the way you don’t want it to. But at that moment, I was so shocked,” Loren said.

Loren’s health concerns had started about eight months earlier, when she noticed a subtle change in the shape of her right breast. She knew something was off.

She first turned to Google in search of answers and then called her gynecologist. The doctor performed a manual exam and noticed something, too, but wasn’t overly concerned. At the time, Loren was just 29, which put her at a very low risk of breast cancer.

Still, her gynecologist ordered a mammogram. When Loren tried to book the test at the recommended imaging center, the earliest available appointment was three months out. She eventually found another clinic with an opening—but because she was still a month shy of her 30th birthday, the radiology team refused to do a mammogram.

Instead, they performed an ultrasound, which pointed to a benign fibroadenoma. They told her it was nothing to worry about and to come back in six months.

Loren returned for the follow-up, now 30 and eligible for a mammogram. This time, the results raised concern. Another ultrasound suggested there was indeed something suspicious. Loren then underwent the biopsy.

Right after the results came in, Loren barged into the room where Steph was isolating with COVID and blurted out: “I have breast cancer.”

In some ways, the cancelled vacation turned out to be a gift. It gave Loren the chance to share the news with everyone else in her life on her terms and timeline, along with a break from work to process all the decisions she faced. What followed was a packed schedule of consultations with surgeons, second and third opinions, MRIs, and discussions about fertility preservation and reconstruction options.

“When the diagnosis came, I assumed that the path forward would be chosen for me,” Loren said. Instead, she found it was a series of long conversations about several treatment options, possible risks, and potential benefits—all of which she had to weigh in a short period of time.

“I had no idea there would actually be so much choice involved,” she said. “And the doctors were often like, ‘Oh, and you also need to decide in 48 hours, and these decisions will impact you for the rest of your life.’”

Loren decided to move forward with a double mastectomy, even though the cancer affected only her right breast. She didn’t want to spend the next several decades under frequent monitoring and stressing about her risk of recurrence. Removing all breast tissue would eliminate the need for mammograms and breast MRIs going forward.

Loren also needed to make a decision about breast reconstruction. She met with three different plastic surgeons in the span of a few weeks. Resistant to the idea of getting an additional surgery that didn’t feel necessary to her, Loren felt frustrated when the first two surgeons strongly pressured her to include reconstructive surgery in her treatment plan.

“I asked myself about what I value in how my body looks versus what I really want to experience medically,” she said.

She ultimately chose a relatively new option called a Goldilocks procedure, which preserves some excess fat and internal layers of skin after a mastectomy to form a small breast mound, and ultimately found a third surgeon who supported her decision. He reassured her that if she wasn’t happy with the results, they could revisit the possibility of reconstruction in the future.

Loren’s surgery took place in September 2024, just over 30 days after her diagnosis. Her recovery went better than she expected. Steph took time off work to care for her in those first few weeks, and Loren’s family stepped in to help as well.

“The worst parts were being uncomfortable while sleeping and some post-surgery gastrointestinal issues, but I’m grateful that I wasn’t in a lot of pain,” she said.

But a few weeks into her six-week recovery, she got news that would require another set of complex decisions. Pathology showed that the cancer had spread to one of her lymph nodes, which bumped her diagnosis up from stage 1 to stage 2. Based on that finding, her medical oncologist recommended chemotherapy followed by radiation.

Loren was devastated about the prospect of undergoing chemotherapy. Results from her initial Oncotype DX^® score showed she was unlikely to benefit from adding chemotherapy to hormone therapy, the latter of which was already part of Loren’s treatment plan. Now, it was back on the table, but, as she would find out, she was in a gray area.

The oncologist explained that because Loren was just 30 years old, research wasn’t as clear-cut when it came to how well her Oncotype DX score predicted her risk of recurrence and potential benefits of chemotherapy, compared with patients in their 50s and 60s. The doctor showed her a variety of charts and other research to explain that younger women with stage 2 breast cancer may still see a modest benefit from chemotherapy, even if they have a low or intermediate Oncotype DX score. But the research was still evolving, and the doctor explained that it was possible that younger patients who got chemotherapy may have had better outcomes because of hormone therapy.

“So there I was, back in my decision paralysis going back and forth, even though I had chosen a surgery that would provide the least risk of recurrence,” she said.

Was it actually worth going through chemotherapy and its side effects if the benefit wasn’t clear? The lack of definitive research made it grueling for Loren to come to a decision.

After reading up on the risks and benefits of chemotherapy for her situation, and meeting with both a radiation oncologist and a researcher running a study on this very scenario, Loren felt more confident forgoing chemotherapy. She moved forward with 18 days of radiation in November and started hormone therapy, which she’ll be on for the next couple of years.

While Loren’s looking forward to the day when this is all “in the rearview mirror,” she’s already reflecting on what she learned from navigating breast cancer

“I had to work on my people-pleasing nature. I learned how to speak up for myself and trust myself,” she said.

She credits research—even when it was murky—for helping her feel confident in her decisions. It gave her a foundation to lean on in moments of doubt, and it gave her clarity that her choices aligned with both her priorities and the best available information.

“Science helped me know that my decision was based off of something, and that gave me a good deal of comfort and confidence,” Loren said.

Navigating all those choices alongside Steph—who was by her side at every appointment—also gave Loren the confidence to make another life-changing decision: The couple got engaged in June 2025.

“Steph was the best support I could’ve asked for,” Loren said. “She never pushed me one way or another, but she still helped me shake some of my fears to come to the decisions I made.”

Looking forward, Loren hopes that new research will provide the clarity she didn’t have at certain points of her breast cancer journey, such as whether getting a mammogram at age 29 would have caught the cancer sooner or how much benefit chemotherapy would have provided to another 30-something with her Oncotype score.

“The research was helpful for the decisions that I had to make, but I could see there were gaps,” she said. “When it comes to why research is important, it’s for the next person who’s in my position who then has the information they need to make their decisions.”

Read more stories from BCRF’s Research Is the Reason storytelling initiative here.