Coping With Recurrence and Sharing Another Diagnosis
- Actress Mindy Cohn is embracing “summer in the city” and life after cancer by enjoying time in Manhattan and participating in a live table read of “Tiny Hot Dogs” with fellow performers.
- The exact subtype of breast cancer Cohn faced from 2012 to 2017 has not been publicly disclosed. Based on her description of the cancer’s recurrence and spread, it may have involved a more advanced stage, potentially stage 2 or 3.
- This past spring, Cohn underwent surgery for an undisclosed type of cancer at the Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California. It’s unclear if it had any connection to her first cancer diagnosis.
- SurvivorNet talked with some of the best breast cancer specialists about what patients can do to prevent a recurrence of breast cancer and the top tip is to “follow treatment guidelines and complete the course of treatment” that’s prescribed for you. This means adhering to taking medications prescribed to help avoid recurrence.
- If you have cancer screening coming up or have recently had one, you may have questions you want answered. SurvivorNet’s proprietary AI tool “My Health Questions” is designed specifically for patients and caregivers.
The 60-year-old actress, who revealed this past spring that she had “kicked cancer’s ass” once again nearly a decade after going into remission following a five-year battle with aggressive breast cancer, recently shared a photo on social media of herself posing with a friend on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Read MoreBefore that post, she shared a video showing the group who participated in the table read receiving applause.View this post on Instagram
Alongside the footage, she took to her Instagram captioned to praise author Mary Giuliani’s script for “Tiny Hot Dogs” and expressing how much fun she had working alongside her fellow cast members.
She also expressed her gratitude to Inspired Girl Enterprises and Storied NYC, adding that she hopes the group will have another opportunity to work together in the future.
Cancer Recurrence and Survivorship Resources
- How To Reduce the Risk Of A Breast Cancer Recurrence
- ‘This Is Not for the Weary’: ‘Baywatch’ Star Nicole Eggert Reflects on ‘Scanxiety’ After Clear Breast Cancer Results
- Preventing Early Breast Cancer Recurrence: Eli Lilly’s Head of Oncology On The Tremendous Potential Of CDK4/6 Inhibitors
- Using Drugs Known as CDK4/6 Inhibitors to Reduce Chance of Breast Cancer Recurrence — It’s Crucial to Understand Risks vs. Benefits
- Taking Kisqali Earlier Helps Prevent Recurrence For Patients With Hormone Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer Regardless of Subtype
It’s wonderful to see Cohn, who turned 60 on May 20, enjoying the warmer weather in New York City just months after undergoing surgery for an undisclosed type of cancer at the Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.
Following her recent diagnosis and recovery, Cohn shared a hospital photo and voiced her deep appreciation for her loved ones and medical team, including a gastrointestinal oncology surgeon who specializes in cancers affecting the colon, liver, pancreas, stomach and other parts of the digestive system.
View this post on Instagram
She captioned her April 19 Instagram post, “I have been off social media for awhile ‘cuz i had to go kick cancer’s ass. I did so with the extraordinary help of Providence Saint John’s hospital staff, especially my nurses Finja, Patty and Courtney and my hero, the phenomenal gastrointestinal oncology surgeon @antonbilchik …. thank you to my family especially my cherished @tarakarsian @johnwstewart @gregoryzarian who have been my advocates and always on the ready to help me when it’s ‘my turn.’
“Recouping for another couple of weeks and then ready for my next adventure. onwards! F**K Cancer!”
Cohn received her first cancer diagnosis back in 2012, a journey she previously opened up about to People magazine.
“I was walking around my neighborhood in Los Angeles, and I suddenly got so tired,” she told People.
The unexpected fatigue led her to seek medical attention, where a scan uncovered breast cancer—a diagnosis she chose to keep private for some time.
She continued, “It kept spreading and coming back. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it would. I was frustrated and enraged. I couldn’t control any of this. I couldn’t fix it.”
Cohn ultimately announced she was “cancer-free” in 2017.
View this post on Instagram
The specific type of breast cancer Cohn battled had has not been made public. However, her account of the cancer returning and spreading may indicate a more advanced disease, which can fall within stages 2 or 3.
Stage 3 breast cancer generally involves a larger tumor and/or cancer that has reached nearby tissues or lymph nodes.
If breast cancer makes it’s way beyond the breast and nearby areas to distant organs, including the bones, lungs or brain, it is classified as stage 4, also known as metastatic breast cancer. Although metastatic breast cancer is generally considered incurable, treatment can often slow the disease, extend survival and help preserve quality of life.
WATCH: How To Reclaim Joy– A New Chapter Of The Breast Cancer Dialogues
How To Reduce the Risk Of A Breast Cancer Recurrence
You beat breast cancer. You battled the beast and are healthy, strong and ready to tackle the rest of your life. But what about breast cancer recurrence?
As triumphant as breast cancer survivors can feel after learning they are cancer free, many worry about recurrence. What are their chances of the cancer returning and what, if anything, can they do to help prevent it from doing so?
While the chance of recurrence varies based on the biology of the tumor, the stage it was when diagnosed and the treatment received, according to the Susan G. Komen organization, “Most people diagnosed with breast cancer will never have a recurrence.” That’s the good news.
“Once a patient has finished his or her active therapy for breast cancer, we will often refer to that time as breast cancer survivorship,” Dr. Erica Mayer, a breast cancer medical oncologist at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, told SurvivorNet in an earlier conversation.
“This is a time when patients are still being actively monitored by their treatment team, not only to ensure that they remain healthy and cancer-free in the years ahead, but also making sure that they have recovered from any side effects of their initial treatment, and that they are pursuing healthy behaviors for example, getting regular exercise, eating a healthy diet, and keeping up with all their other routine medical care.”
But recurrence does happen, so it’s important to do everything you can to reduce your risk. Here are some tips:
1. Follow Treatment Guidelines
“The best way to reduce your risk of recurrence with breast cancer is to follow treatment guidelines and complete the course of treatment that’s given,” says Dr. Elisa Port, a surgical oncologist specializing in breast cancer at Mount Sinai, sat down with SurvivorNet and offered the following advice.
For example, she says many women have breast cancer that’s hormonally driven, and there are treatments that they give, such as pills like Tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors, to reduce the risk of these hormonally-driven cancers coming back. The issue is that the course of treatment may call for patients to take the pills for 5-10 years. While some have no side effects, others may experience a host of unpleasant side effects, even to the point where they’re severely debilitated and have no quality of life on these medications.
“So the challenge is to work with every individual person to make sure we give her the best chance of getting through these treatments and enjoying the benefits of these treatments, which is the lowest rate of cancer coming back,” Port says.
2. Maintain a Healthy Weight
Maintaining a healthy weight may also reduce the risk.
“We know that obesity or being overweight can increase the risk of cancer recurrence in breast cancer,” Port says. “And so I say, maintaining a healthy body weight, whatever that is for the individual… You know, we talk a lot about healthy body weight, and there’s a very big range of this, but there are certain numbers beyond which, it does affect one’s health. So we try to keep people within a range of a healthy body weight.”
3. Limit Alcohol
Port says the other lifestyle factor that may increase one’s risk of breast cancer recurrence is heavy alcohol intake.
“We say alcohol in moderation is probably fine, which is defined as three to five drinks a week,” Port told SurvivorNet. “More than that can also potentially increase the risk of recurrence. So the big lifestyle factors are healthy body weight and moderate alcohol intake.”
4. Eat a Healthy Diet
She says there’s no one dietary element that you can eat or consume to give you an edge against breast cancer recurrence. It’s not eating more broccoli or eating more blueberries or becoming a vegetarian. She says the fact that sugar feeds cancer is a big myth too. However, everything you eat does contribute to your overall health.
“These things are all really helpful in maintaining an overall healthy well-balanced diet and also to maintain healthy body weight. We know that diets that are heavy in sugar content are also usually unhealthy and can lead to weight issues. So it all really funnels back to maintaining a healthy body weight when it comes to lifestyle factors.”
5. Exercise
This goes hand-in-hand with maintaining a healthy weight. Dr. Mayer previously told SurvivorNet, “Once a patient has finished his or her active therapy for breast cancer, we will often refer to that time as breast cancer survivorship.
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“This is a time when patients are still being actively monitored by their treatment team, not only to ensure that they remain healthy and cancer-free in the years ahead, but also making sure that they have recovered from any side effects of their initial treatment, and that they are pursuing healthy behaviors for example, getting regular exercise, eating a healthy diet, and keeping up with all their other routine medical care.”
CDK4/6 Inhibitors Can Help Reduce Chance of Breast Cancer Recurrence
In the breast cancer space, there are constant efforts from researchers and drug makers to develop therapies that can not only treat cancer better, but reduce the risk of it returning. And many promising advancements in breast cancer have arisen in recent years.
For women with a common subtype of breast cancer — hormone-receptor-positive and HER2-negative (HR+ and HER2-) — a newer class of drugs called CDK4/6 inhibitors has shown promise.
CDK4/6 inhibitors work to interrupt the growth of cancer cells. SurvivorNet also sat down with Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky, Head of Breast Medical Oncology at Valley Health System, to discuss how a CDK4/6 inhibitor, Ribociclib (sold under brand name Kisqali), has been studied for women with this specific type of breast cancer.
What are CDK4/6 inhibitors? Understanding Risks vs. Benefits
Referencing data obtained from the NATALEE phase III clinical trial, Dr. Teplinsky explained how breast cancer patients who received Ribociclib along with endocrine therapy (the current recommended treatment) had a 25% lower risk of recurrence or death.
Prior to the study, “Ribociclib was already approved for metastatic hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, but this study was looking to see if it has benefits in reducing recurrence in earlier stage breast cancer,” she explained.
The study looked at something called disease-free survival, which means patients are alive without their cancer recurring.
“In the group that received Ribociclib and endocrine therapy … at three years their disease-free survival was 90.4% compared to 87.1% in the group that received endocrine therapy alone,” Dr. Teplinsky said. This translates to a 3.3% “absolute improvement.”
Since this trial data was first reported, ribociclib has moved from investigational to standard of care. On September 17, 2024, the FDA approved ribociclib (Kisqali) in combination with an aromatase inhibitor for adjuvant treatment of adults with HR+, HER2- stage II and III early breast cancer at high risk of recurrence, including patients with node-negative disease.
This makes it an FDA-approved option for the earlier-stage setting Dr. Teplinsky was describing, not just for metastatic disease.
WATCH: Sharing a Diagnosis
What You Need to Know About Survivorship
Whether you’re beginning your journey into survivorship or are a seasoned survivor, you’ll quickly learn that it’s a term with many layers. At its simplest, ‘survivorship’ signifies the state of living beyond a challenging event or diagnosis, such as cancer. More specifically, it marks the period after treatment where a patient goes from merely surviving to thriving, as they navigate their newfound lease on life.
It’s important to remember that survivorship isn’t just an end state – it’s a continuous journey. It begins the moment a person is diagnosed with a significant health condition and continues throughout their life. You might hear people say things like, “from the moment of diagnosis, you become a survivor.”
It’s a powerful sentiment that reflects the courage and resilience involved in battling a serious illness.
Being a survivor also means redefining your life while coping with the aftermath of disease and its treatment. This phase might include the challenge of dealing with physical and emotional changes, attending regular check-ups, the fear of recurrence, or the need for long-term medication. Despite these hurdles, many survivors find unique strength, growth, and transformation during this time.
Survivorship is much more than just the absence of disease—it’s a new stage of life, a rite of passage. Your journey might not have been one you would have chosen, but through it, you’ll uncover a greater understanding of yourself and what you’re capable of. Each person’s survivorship journey is unique, and how you choose to travel is entirely up to you.
Remember—navigating this new terrain called ‘Survivorship’. It might be challenging, but remember, you’re not alone. There are ample resources and support systems designed to help you along the way.
Continued Medical Care
Don’t lose sight of the importance of continued medical care – always keep your follow-up appointments and adhere to any healthcare recommendations.
Remember, embracing these coping strategies can help you navigate your way into survivorship with greater ease and renewed energy. Just remember – slow and steady wins the race! You’ve overcome huge hurdles, it’s okay to take this new stage of your life at your own pace.
Resilient learning to overcome any obstacle
Additionally, health checkups are an integral part of maintaining wellness and spotting potential health issues early. This holds true for everyone, but even more so for a person who’s in the throes of survivorship.
One of the main reasons you’ll want to maintain routine health checks is to monitor for recurrence. While the hope is always for complete recovery, there’s a possibility of the disease returning—even with successful treatment. Regular checkups allow you to keep a vigilant eye on the situation, leading to early detection and treatment if any problem emerges.
Questions To Ask Your Doctor
If you have a breast cancer screening coming up or have recently had one, you may have questions you want answered. SurvivorNet’s proprietary AI tool “My Health Questions” is designed specifically for patients and caregivers.
WATCH: How One Cancer Survivor and Her Sister Used “My Health Questions” to Navigate Care
This powerful resource is embedded across the SurvivorNet website and delivers structured responses grounded in clinical guidelines and medically reviewed research to help people better understand their treatment options and feel more confident navigating care.
My Health Questions can also help patients come up with useful questions ahead of their next appointment.
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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