How an Advanced Breast Cancer Patient Found Hope With Her Own Immune System
- An Arkansas woman, who was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, saw her treatment journey take a turn for the better after her doctor recommended she try immunotherapy to help treat the disease. The treatment ultimately helped her reach remission.
- Immunotherapy enables white blood cells to recognize and attack cancer cells, often evading the immune system.
- While immunotherapy continues to be an effective treatment option for many types of cancers, it is not guaranteed to work on every patient so it’s important to talk with your doctor if it is an option for you.
- Like most cancer treatments, immunotherapy also comes with side effects, which may include fatigue, nausea, and diarrhea. If side effects become too severe, your doctor may need to stop immunotherapy treatments.
- Metastatic breast cancer (also called stage 4 breast cancer) is a condition in which cancer cells have spread from the breast to other parts of the body. Although the cancer is incurable at this stage, treatment options exist to help manage it, potentially prolonging life.
- In addition to immunotherapy, stage 4 breast cancer patients may also find chemotherapy, target therapy that targets your tumor’s specific gene mutations, and clinical trials as viable options. Clinical trials use treatments that have not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration but can be life-changing if successful.
“The chemo was rough,” Moore told WLTX News. “I’m going to tell you that was the hardest part by far.”
Read MoreThen, her doctor introduced her to a different approach: immunotherapy. Unlike chemotherapy, immunotherapy works by reprogramming the body’s immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells more effectively. For Moore, the results were life-changing.
“Going routinely every three weeks with the immunotherapy, I’m in 100% remission today,” she said.
Her journey from uncertainty to remission is a testament to the life-saving potential of advancing cancer treatments—and the power of resilience in the fight against this disease.
Helping Patients Understand Immunotherapy as a Treatment Option
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How Reprogramming the Immune System Fights Cancer
Immunotherapy has been a game-changing treatment option for treating several cancers. It boosts your body’s own immune response to help it stop the cancer.
The immune system uses its white blood cells to attack abnormal or foreign cells in the body.
WATCH: How Immunotherapy Works?
Cancerous cells can prevent the immune system from doing its job. The cancer produces certain proteins to protect the tumor from white blood cells so the body does not recognize the tumor as abnormal.
Immunotherapy drugs prevent this and ensure the white blood cells recognize the cancer cell properly and attack it. Cancer cells themselves are not necessarily difficult to fight. However, they continue to divide rapidly. So, immunotherapy drugs help a patient’s immune system control their cancer on its own before it can spread.
Unfortunately, immunotherapy does not work for every patient, so be sure to talk with your doctor to determine whether you are eligible for this type of treatment.
WATCH: Why Immunotherapy Isn’t for Everyone.
“Using a patient’s own immune cells is a very complex way to treat cancer,” says Dr. Steven Rosenberg, Chief of Surgery at the National Cancer Institute and a pioneer in immunotherapy research and treatment.
Dr. Rosenberg’s team has developed methods for genetically modifying a patient’s own immune cells “to recognize the cancer in a new way” and to kill it.
Immunotherapy Side Effects
Like most treatments, immunotherapy also comes with the chance of side effects. They may include:
- Fatigue
- Nausea or stomach discomfort
- Joint pain
- Diarrhea or constipation
- Cough
- Rash
- Loss of appetite
- Changes in blood cell counts
- Fever
WATCH: Understanding immunotherapy side effects.
If you experience severe side effects, your doctor may need to temporarily or permanently stop your immunotherapy treatment.
“The side effects of immunotherapy are not, quote, forever. Depending upon the severity depends upon how we manage it. There are some patients who will get diarrhea, and we can give them treatments to calm down their diarrhea, which lasts a couple of days. It might be sporadic over a couple of weeks,” Dr. Anna Pavlick, a medical oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine, tells SurvivorNet.
More Treatment Options for Advanced Breast Cancer
Metastatic breast cancer (also called stage 4) means cancer cells have spread from the breast to other parts of the body, which may include the bones, liver, lungs, brain, and beyond.
Breast cancer spreads through the bloodstream or lymphatic system. The blood carries cancer cells to different body parts, where they grow as new tumors.
As the cancer spreads to other body parts, patients may experience additional symptoms depending on where the cancer has spread. Examples include:
- Bones: Severe bone pain or fractures
- Lungs: Difficulty breathing, chest pain, new cough
- Liver: Yellowing of the skin (jaundice), abdominal pain, nausea, and/or vomiting
- Brain: Headaches, memory loss, changes in vision, seizures
WATCH: Treatment options for metastatic breast cancer.
Although stage 4 breast cancer is not curable, several treatment options exist that can extend the life of patients. Treatment options depend on the stage, type of primary breast cancer, and whether hormone receptors are positive.
Treatment can include a combination of:
- Chemotherapy: Oral or IV medications that are toxic to tumor cells
- Hormonal therapies: Drugs that lower estrogen levels or block estrogen receptors from allowing the cancer cells to grow
- Targeted therapies: Drugs that target your tumor’s specific gene mutations
- Immunotherapy: Medications that stimulate your immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells
- Radiation: The use of high-energy rays to kill tumor cells and shrink tumors
- Surgery: To remove a cancerous tumor or lymph nodes (uncommon with stage IV; more common in stages I, II, and III)
- Clinical trials: Studies of new medications, treatments, and other therapies offer hope for better outcomes
Questions for Your Doctor
If your breast cancer journey involves metastasis, you may be wondering what to expect and if radiation therapy is an option for you. Here are some questions you can ask your doctor to get the conversation started:
- What type of breast cancer do I have? Does it have a risk of spreading?
- Does my breast cancer have a risk of spreading to my brain?
- Will radiation help treat the cancer in my brain? What type of radiotherapy do you recommend?
- How long does radiation treatment typically last? Will I have to take time away from work and daily activities?
- Would I be on any other forms of treatment while receiving radiation?
- How do you expect my cancer to respond to the treatment?
- What financial resources are available to me to help cover costs associated with radiation treatment?
- What’s the efficacy of radiation treatment?
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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