Actor Jason Priestley, 50, just revealed he was “very heartbroken about the news” of Shannen Doherty’s stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis. “Shannen was a big part of my life," he said of Doherty, 49, who played his twin sister on ’90s hit series Beverly Hills 90210. "[We] will always have a bond that is very meaningful.”
Read More“I don’t think I’ve processed it,” she said in her GMA interview, adding, “I definitely have days where I say, ‘Why me?’ And then I go, ‘Well, why not me? Who else…deserves this?’ None of us do.”
Shannen Doherty's Cancer Journey
In 2015, Doherty found a lump in her breast that a biopsy determined was cancerous, she told Health. Hormone therapy was ineffective, as the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. A year after her diagnosis, she had a single mastectomy and underwent courses of chemotherapy and radiation followed by reconstructive surgery.
After facing cancer, Doherty's relationship with her body changed. "I love that my body is strong and that it has the ability to fight something like cancer," she said. "Importantly, my perception of sexy has changed. For me now, sexy is strength. Sexy is vulnerability. Sexy is compassion. Sexy is grace. Why should I care so much about the physical shell?"
At the time, she acknowledged that the treatment had caused her to enter menopause, making pregnancy impossible without taking hormone pills. She decided against it due to fear that estrogen levels can increase the risk of cancer returning. While considering other options to become a mother, she expressed her concerns over how long she had until relapsing.
"We're having conversations about an egg donor, maybe adoption," she told Health. "But there's fear there. Am I going to last five years? Ten years? I certainly wouldn't want my 10-year-old burying a mother."
Dealing With a Late-Stage Breast Cancer Diagnosis
Stage 4 breast cancer means that your cancer has metastasized and is no longer regionalized to the breast. While treatable, this cancer currently has no cure. While we don't know the specifics of Doherty's breast cancer, the treatment for metastatic disease can vary significantly depending on the individual case. Treatment options include hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and targeted drugs. Sometimes surgery and/or radiation is considered. The goal is to keep patients as stable as possible, slow the tumor growth and improve quality of life.
What's Next for Breast Cancer and Immunotherapy?
Immunotherapy has been a game-changing treatment option when it comes to treating several cancers. But until recently, researchers hadn't had much success using the therapy to fight breast cancer. That's changing now, Dr. Sylvia Adams, a medical oncologist at NYU Perlmutter Cancer Center, told SurvivorNet in a previous interview.
Dr. Sylvia Adams discusses breast cancer and immunotherapy.
"The question now becomes, is it only triple-negative breast cancer that can benefit from immunotherapy, or are there other subtypes as well?" Dr. Adams explains. "If a tumor has the PD-L1 protein in it, that means there's already an inflammatory response, that the patient's immune system already recognized the tumor and was starting to work against it. The benefit of identifying such a strong biomarker in the triple-negative subset will allow us to actually test for the presence and responsiveness to immunotherapy in other subtypes of breast cancer."
Hormone Therapies for Breast Cancer: CDK 4/6 Inhibitors
While hormone therapy was not effective in treating Shannen Doherty’s breast cancer, a new class of targeted therapy drugs called kinase inhibitors can now help treat some metastatic breast cancers, Dr. Erica Mayer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, told SurvivorNet.
These drugs target two kinase proteins, called cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6, that normally regulate the cell cycle and division. There are three CDK 4/6 inhibitors available: palbociclib (Ibrance), ribociclib (Kisqali), and abemaciclib (Verzenio). These drugs are primarily used in women with hormone receptor-positive and HER2-negative breast cancer. When they are combined with other hormone therapy, many women can have up to two years of their cancer not getting any worse. A common side effect was a decrease in white blood cells which can increase the risk of infection.
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