Can breast cancer come back after treatment?
When he broke the news that it looked as if her breast cancer had spread and formed about a dozen small tumors inside her brain, she was stunned. Three-quarters of women with metastatic breast cancer were originally diagnosed with early-stage disease. The idea that the breast cancer “came back” after initial treatment is a bit misleading.
What are the biggest challenges facing breast cancer care today?
“Our two greatest challenges,” says Dr. Eric Winer, director of breast oncology at Dana-Farber, “are figuring out better treatments for the 40,000 women who die of breast cancer every year, and at same time, figure out who, on the other end of the spectrum, is getting exposed to needless toxicity.” If only doctors could agree on how to do that.
Are women with breast cancer being overtreated?
In other words, that conversation took place before doctors and patients were faced with the evidence that in the U.S., many women with breast cancer are being massively overtreated.
Can we change the fates of metastatic breast cancer patients?
It has been more than three years since she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in her brain. She has survived longer than most women like her, thanks to new drugs, clinical trials and creative thinking by her doctors. Kraemer is proof that research and science can change the fates of metastatic-breast-cancer patients.
The Fundamental Challenge: Early Disease Detection, and Disease Progression
Public health aims to prevent disease and promote health. To that end, screening, with its promise of detecting early markers of pathology and preventing disease, stands to be a core part of the public health armamentarium.
Screening, Cutoffs, and the Heart of the Tradeoff
Screening, such as mammography, is the process of using a test or set of tests to determine whether an individual likely has or will likely develop a given disease or health indicator. These tests are based on prior data gathered in comparisons of a screening tool against a gold-standard measure.
Why Context Matters: How Population Prevalence Determines the Utility of a Test
Positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) provide another way to understand test performance in terms that are salient to patients. In contrast to sensitivity and specificity, PPV and NPV are characteristics that pertain to individuals.
First Do No Harm: The Unintended Consequences of Unnecessary Screening
So, given this background, why then screen, and when? My colleagues and I cover this topic in our textbook, Epidemiology Matters, where we note that screening measures should be implemented when the indicator of interest is “an important determinant of population health”; when “it can be detected before signs and symptoms appear”; and when the process of screening, early detection, and treatment results in population improvements in morbidity or mortality.
How many women die from breast cancer each year?
Having a presence at major conferences is part of a strategy to increase research funding for metastatic disease and raise awareness that for all the strides made in treatment, some 40,000 American women still die from breast cancer every year.
How long does metastatic breast cancer last?
A 2017 study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute found that some 11% of women under 65 diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer live for 10 years or more. The year prior, George Sledge, chief of oncology at Stanford, had published a paper in the Journal of Oncology Practice called “Curing Metastatic Breast Cancer.”.
Do doctors know if breast cancer is metastatic?
Doctors do not know why some breast cancers eventually form deadly metastases or how to quash the disease once it has spread. Patients with metastatic disease are typically treated with one drug after another, their doctors switching the medications whenever the disease stops responding to treatment.
Can breast cancer grow during treatment?
Women who declare themselves cancer-free have no way of knowing if they really are. Sometimes breast cancer continues to grow during treatment.
Does breast cancer come back after treatment?
Women who undergo traditional chemotherapy shortly after an early-stage diagnosis, as I did, do so because their doctors believe they may have micrometastases—cancer growths outside the breast that are too small to appear on scans.
Do breast cancer patients get brain scans?
Often, though not always, newly diagnosed breast-cancer patients get abdominal scans, but they almost never have brain scans unless a symptom appears. (About a year after I finished treatment, I had a debilitating two-day headache and my oncologist recommended I get a brain MRI, which turned up nothing.
Does Kraemer work against breast cancer?
Kraemer enrolled in yet another clinical trial, this one testing whether a drug that has been shown to work against certain types of liver and kidney cancer might help women with metastatic breast cancer. In September 2018, I flew to Chicago to see Kraemer.