As new mothers know, breast infections can be a painful side-effect of breastfeeding. So when actress Marnie Schulenburg, 36 — who played Alison Stewart Snyder on “As the World Turns” and “Young and Restless” — noticed pain in her left breast as she nursed her newborn, she sought help.
“Over the last 3.5 months I have seen two lactation consultants, one breast specialist and my OBGYN all to figure out what was causing my left breast to hurt when I fed with it, turn red, hot, swollen, dimple and harden but wasn't responding to antibiotics or any treatment for severe inflammation and breast infections,” she wrote on Instagram (below).
Read MoreAn ultrasound led to a diagnosis of mastitis (a breast infection), as shelter-in-place orders descended in mid-March. But prescribed antibiotics didn’t help. A telemedicine visit with a breast specialist brought more antibiotics. “Finally another ultrasound,” Schulenburg writes, recounting her diagnosic journey: “Three antibiotics, one nipple cream, two ultrasounds, two mammograms, and three biopsies before it was finally confirmed that I had breast cancer.”
Her stage 4 breast cancer is, “a most insidious kind, Inflammatory Breast Cancer which doesn't look like typical Breast Cancer, is more aggressive, affects younger women, and disguises itself as a breastfeeding infection.”
“Devastation and Determination”
She shared the news “on the eve of my 36th birthday,” asking “How does one celebrate a birthday after a Stage Four Breast Cancer Diagnosis in the middle of a global pandemic while raising a 5 month old?”
The cancer, Schulenburg says, “infects the one area that is your baby's life source.”
“What kind of sick purveyor of my fate gave me the gift to bring life into this world only to try and take mine in its place? Zack and I vacillate between utter devastation and fierce determination,” she says. “The narrative of the life we signed on for the day we married will never be the same. Now we must adjust, stay present and fight. #cancersucks.”
Inflammatory Breast Cancer
More likely to occur in younger women, inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is particularly aggressive. Its unique symptoms — which usually come on quickly within 3-6 months — are caused by the cancer cells blocking the lymph vessels in the skin. IBC is rare,
accounting for only 1-5% of all breast cancers according to the American Cancer Society.
Dr. Elizabeth Comen a Medical Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Gives an Overview of Treatment Options for Advanced Breast Cancer
One indicator of inflammatory breast cancer is dimpled breast skin, a condition called peau d'orange. “With peau d’orange, the breast becomes swollen, you have increased
pore size and it looks like an orange peel when you have inflammatory breast cancer,” Dr. Veronica Jones, Assistant Clinical Professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology, Department of Surgery at City of Hope, tells SurvivorNet.
"But that is a very rare type of breast cancer, and that is not one of the most common signs of breast cancer," she says. "If you do see it, then absolutely go to your healthcare provider, but if you don't see it, it doesn't mean that you're safe."
Hormone Therapies for Breast Cancer
People with breast cancer that has spread to other parts of their body are living longer. And the quality of life for people with metastatic breast cancer has also improved, says Dr. Erica Mayer, a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
For hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, which needs hormones to grow, there are several options available for treatment.
A new class of targeted therapy drugs called kinase inhibitors can now help treat some metastatic breast cancers, Dr. Mayer. 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 progression-free survival.
Dr. Mayer adds that clinical trials have shown that hormone medicines are more effective when paired with targeted therapies. At some point, chemotherapy will be introduced. And, she says, it’s delivered at a dose and schedule that’s as well-tolerated as possible.
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