Metastatic breast cancer treatment options
FASLODEX is indicated for the treatment of hormone receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer in postmenopausal women whose disease has returned or progressed following antiestrogen therapy.
metastatic breast cancer — also referred to as stage IV breast cancer — is diagnosed when a breast cancer has spread to other parts of the body such as the bones, liver, lungs, or brain. Metastatic breast cancer can be diagnosed when there was no prior history of breast cancer. It can also develop as a recurrence of breast cancer that was diagnosed in the past.
Women diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer have several treatment options available to them. Generally, these treatments are aimed at lengthening life and improving or maintaining quality of life whenever possible. A medical team can help make the appropriate decisions about treatment and follow-up care, based on a woman’s medical condition and the lifestyle she wants to lead. You need to determine what treatment options will work for you by weighing the risks and benefits with your doctor.
Some therapies that are available for women with metastatic breast cancer include:
Hormonal Treatment: Hormonal treatment is considered a systemic therapy, which means the medication travels in the bloodstream to affect or treat cancer cells. It may be used to reduce the growth or spread of breast cancer. If the cancer is found to be of the type that may be sensitive to estrogen, hormonal treatment may be able to keep estrogen from helping the cancer cells to grow and divide.
The presence of estrogen or progesterone receptors in the cancerous tumor is the best way to predict a woman's response to hormonal treatment for breast cancer. If it has not already been done, your doctor can do a test to determine the estrogen and progesterone receptor status of your tumor.
The hormonal treatment you and your doctor decide is right for you will depend on a number of factors, such as whether you are premenopausal or postmenopausal. Hormonal treatment options available for premenopausal women will not be discussed here; please talk to your doctor about these options. There are several hormonal treatment options available for postmenopausal women with metastatic breast cancer that can be tailored to the lifestyle a woman wants to lead. Hormonal treatments are currently available in pill form or as a monthly intramuscular injection into the buttock. Ask your physician about these therapies.
A woman may have already received hormonal treatment following her initial diagnosis and treatment. FASLODEX is a hormonal treatment for hormone receptor-positive in postmenopausal women whose breast cancer has returned or progressed following other antiestrogen therapy such as tamoxifen. Click here to see how FASLODEX works.
back to top
Chemotherapy: Chemotherapy is the use of drugs that target and destroy rapidly dividing cells, including cancer cells. It can be used in metastatic breast cancer to shrink cancerous tumors and is sometimes used if it is believed the breast cancer will not adequately respond to hormonal or other therapy. Like hormonal treatment, chemotherapy is a systemic therapy.
Several types of chemotherapy drugs are available and may be administered by mouth or directly into the vein (intravenously). Chemotherapy drugs can be used in combinations (combination chemotherapy) or one after another (sequential chemotherapy).
back to top
Biologically Targeted Therapy: This term covers a range of options that are part of the family of cancer treatments. These systemic therapies fight cancer by targeting specific features of cancer cells. They are often added to chemotherapy. For example, there are specific treatments that target breast cancer cells that make too much of a protein called HER2/neu. This can cause the HER2/neu proteins to stop working, in which case the tumor cells are less able to grow.
back to top
Radiation Therapy: Radiation therapy uses penetrating beams of high-energy waves or streams of particles to kill and hinder the growth of cancer cells. In metastatic disease, radiation is most commonly used to treat pain in the bone, metastatic tumors in the brain, breast or chest wall pain, or skin ulcers over the breast tumor. Radiation therapy is referred to as a local therapy because it treats a specific area of the body.
back to top
Surgery: Surgery may be used to remove painful breast tissue or metastases in the brain, spinal column, or lungs. Surgery also permits diagnostic tissue removal. Like radiation, surgery is considered a local therapy.
back to top
To view the download, you need Adobe® Acrobat® Reader® installed. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer, you can download it from the Adobe Web site.
Adobe Acrobat Reader is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.