Metastatic breast cancer is an advanced stage of the disease where the cancerous cells are no longer contained to the breast tissue. It has now spread to other areas of the body, like the lungs, bones, liver or even brain. With the progression of each stage of breast cancer, treatment options become increasingly more limited, as is the case for metastatic breast cancer. Although fewer treatments are available, therapies still include some of the more common approaches to care, such as hormone treatment, chemotherapy drugs, radiation and even surgery.
Hormone Therapy
For metastatic breast cancer, your first line of treatment is often the use of a hormonal therapy. With this form of treatment, a series of synthetic hormones and/or drugs are administered to block the production of certain hormones and thereby alter the hormone levels in your body. This can slow and even stop the progression of abnormal cells. Sometimes, hormonal therapy is used with a monoclonal antibody that binds with the cancerous cells, stopping the metastasis and improving your survival rate with this stage of cancer.
Chemotherapy
If hormone therapy fails to produce its expected results, your doctor may start you on a course of chemotherapy to either kill remaining cancer cells, shrink malignant tumors or as a new line of defense against the disease. Much like any form of chemotherapy, a series of anticancer drugs are administered into the bloodstream to damage the abnormal cells to stop them from dividing. While chemotherapy is commonly done in conjunction with hormone therapy, especially when dealing with metastatic breast cancer, your doctor may opt to start you on chemotherapy before other therapies are used to treat the disease.
Enzyme Therapy
Instead of hormone therapy and chemotherapy, you may need to go through enzyme therapy. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors are the most common with this stage of the disease, since they obstruct the communication and growth of the cancerous cells linked to breast cancer. This is usually combined with other anticancer drugs, like capecitabine and lapatinib, to increase the efficacy of the kinase inhibitors.
Radiation Therapy
If these forms of treatment fail to treat the disease, your doctor may turn to palliative forms of treatment to help ease associated symptoms of the cancer, especially pain. Radiation therapy is one of the more common palliative treatments, where external beams are targeted on affected areas of the body to reduce the size of the tumors and lessen uncomfortable symptoms. This may be followed by surgery to remove the remaining cancerous cells. Although this approach rarely "cures" the cancer, it can go a long way to improving quality of life.
Clinical Trials
From there, you may find yourself a candidate for a clinical trial. Clinical trials generally combine new and/or long-standing therapies and procedures, like chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormone therapy and surgery, that may better fight against this stage of breast cancer. As with any type of clinical trial, available therapies and procedures vary, so talk to your doctor if you're interested in trying this form of treatment.
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