Amanda Peet Describes Early Breast Cancer Warning That Wasn’t a Lump

Amanda Peet learned she had breast cancer in the fall, but she says the first sign that something was wrong came about six months earlier.

In an interview with TODAY, the actor described the unusual symptom she noticed while getting dressed.

“I was in my closet, I was probably putting something on and I felt a weird — it just didn’t feel like normal skin, but it wasn’t the frozen pea that everybody talks about,” Peet, 54, told Savannah Guthrie, referring to how a breast cancer lump can feel.

“I went and I even got an MRI and then they sent me away. So I thought I had a clean bill of health, but they were actually watching it.”

Months later, during what she believed was a routine scan, her doctor saw something troubling on an ultrasound, Peet wrote in an essay for The New Yorker. She said she could tell something was wrong when her usually talkative physician suddenly went quiet.

The doctor then performed a biopsy and later told her she would personally take the sample to Cedars-Sinai and hand-deliver it on a Friday night, another detail that raised concern.

Peet said she will always remember the call in which she received her breast cancer diagnosis.

Although a lump is the best-known symptom, breast cancer can also show up through skin changes such as dents, swelling and redness. Pitted skin, similar to the texture of an orange peel, is another sign doctors watch for.

After her diagnosis, Peet said she had to process a “slow drip of information” about treatment options, genetic results and hormone receptor status. “If you’re an anxious person, it’s your basic nightmare,” she said.

She was diagnosed with hormone-receptor-positive and HER2-negative lobular breast cancer and underwent a lumpectomy and radiation.

Lobular breast cancer makes up about 15% of new breast cancer diagnoses, according to the National Cancer Institute. Because tumors often do not form a lump, the disease can be harder to detect, especially in women with dense breast tissue. Peet said she has dense breasts and had been told she needed extra monitoring, including checkups with a breast surgeon every six months.

Her cancer was found at Stage 1. “I think about how lucky I was in so many ways,” she said.

Peet also said she has strong health insurance, a supportive network of friends and family, and a nanny. “There were a lot of people around to take care of me, but not everybody has that,” she said. “So I’ve also been giving that a lot of thought.”