A squash game saved this famous trader's life. Here's how he learned he had breast cancer.

MW A squash game saved this famous trader's life. Here's how he learned he had breast cancer.

By Jaimy Lee

The investor Steve Eisman is undergoing treatment for breast cancer, which is diagnosed in fewer than 1% of men

Steve Eisman, the trader known for betting against the U.S. housing market before the global financial crisis, said he is undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

Steve Eisman is a hedge-fund trader best known on Wall Street for successfully betting against the housing market before the recession of 2007-09. His experiences in the lead-up to the financial crisis were detailed in "The Big Short," a bestselling book that was made into a hit movie.

On Thursday, Eisman went on CNBC and told a moving story about his health, saying he has breast cancer and is undergoing treatment for the disease. Fewer than 1% of breast cancer diagnoses occur in men, and when they do, it's usually in men who are between the ages of 60 and 70, according to the American Cancer Society.

In the interview, Eisman, who is in his early 60s, said that a friend who is an oncologist noticed a skin irritation on his left breast while they were in the gym locker room after playing squash in June.

"He looks at me, and he said, 'What's that? And I go, 'What's what?'" Eisman said. "And he literally walks over to me and starts giving me a breast exam in the locker room."

"I knew immediately," said his friend, Robert Gelfand, who runs a network of infusion centers in New York City.

He urged Eisman to get a mammogram right away. From there, Eisman was diagnosed, underwent a double mastectomy and is being treated with two types of chemotherapy: Taxol and AC, or Adriamycin and cyclophosphamide. He will finish chemo this month and start radiation therapy in January.

"Women face this all the time," Eisman said. "The reason why I'm mentioning this is that it's rare for men, but it's not unheard of."

Doctors and researchers don't know as much about breast cancer in men as they do in women, but that's slowly starting to change. Physicians are aware that certain factors can elevate a man's risk of getting the disease, including being older or inheriting a BRCA gene mutation from a parent.

Having a mutated BRCA gene increases the risk of several cancers, including breast, ovarian, prostate and pancreatic. People of Ashkenazi Jewish and Icelandic descent are more likely to have a mutated BRCA gene, and it's one reason some women undergo preventive mastectomies or hysterectomies. It's also the largest known risk factor for men who get breast cancer, Hal Burstein, a breast oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, told MarketWatch. Burstein is not involved in Eisman's care.

There are two types of BRCA genes. A BRCA1 mutation raises the risk of breast cancer in men by up to 1.2% by age 70, while a BRCA2 mutation can increase the risk by up to 7.1%, according to a study published in 2022 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Survival rates for men with breast cancer tend to be lower than for women, according to a 2018 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. This is likely due to the age of diagnosis and the fact that men aren't regularly screened for breast cancer. By the time a man has a lump that he can feel, the cancer is often at a more advanced stage.

"There's a need for men to be aware," Eisman said.

Over the last decade or so, a wave of better cancer tests and treatments have come to market for people with gene mutations that affect cancer risk. AstraZeneca's $(AZN)$ Lynparza was the first drug to specifically treat BRCA-mutated ovarian cancer when it was approved in 2014. It's now approved to treat related breast cancers and is sometimes used to treat men. There's also growing awareness about breast cancer in men, and more researchers are now enrolling men in breast cancer trials.

"There have been essentially no randomized trials in the treatment of male breast cancer that have reported to date," Burstein said. "We take all the lessons from treating women with breast cancer."

When celebrities or other well-known figures like Eisman disclose medical diagnoses, it sometimes results in what's known as the "Angelina effect," which refers to the increase in BRCA testing rates after actor Angelina Jolie shared in 2013 that she had a preventive double mastectomy upon learning she carried a BRCA1 gene mutation. One well-known person who has said he was diagnosed with breast cancer and has the BRCA2 mutation is Matthew Knowles, Beyoncé's father.

Eisman, who didn't say whether he has the BRCA mutation during the CNBC interview, urged men to seek medical care if they notice any changes.

"Just check it out," he said. "After the mammogram, the doctor said to me, 'Your friend saved your life.'"

-Jaimy Lee

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December 12, 2025 10:16 ET (15:16 GMT)

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