Understanding Metastatic Breast Cancer
- A mother from the Columbus, Ohio-area who's expecting her second child is fighting for her life once again after learning her breast cancer recently returned.
- Stage 4, or metastatic, cancers have spread beyond the breast and nearby lymph nodes to other parts of the body.
- When breast cancer spreads, it most commonly goes to the bones, liver and lungs, like in Brittany’s case. It may also spread to the brain or other organs.
In 2014, Brittany Corbitt was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer at just 26 years old. (The type of breast cancer she was diagnosed with is unknown.) But recently, she and her husband, Ben, learned that her cancer has come back, shortly after finding out they were also expecting their second child.
Read More
"It's just amazing and complete strangers that I've never met have said, 'I'm an over-supplier willing to donate some of my milk,'" she said.
Brittany is doing well as she undergoes chemotherapy for her breast cancer recurrence, and she shares regular updates on social media. Earlier this week, on Tuesday, May 10, she shared a photo to Facebook of her wearing a cold cap (in order to prevent hair loss during chemotherapy) and said that her oncologist is "more than on board" with her new baby "coming out in two weeks and moving forward with new drugs once I deliver!"
"Got a chest XR to see if I need another thoracentesis (a procedure to remove fluid or air from around the lungs) before this baby is born," she added. "LETSSSSSS GOOOOOOO 💃ðŸ»"
Understanding Metastatic Breast Cancer
Stage 4, or metastatic, cancers have spread beyond the breast and nearby lymph nodes to other parts of the body. When breast cancer spreads, it most commonly goes to the bones, liver and lungs, like in Brittany’s case. It may also spread to the brain or other organs.
Dr. Julie Nangia, an assistant professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and the director of the Breast Cancer Prevention High-Risk Clinic, previously told SurvivorNet: "When breast cancer comes back, the most common place for breast cancer to come back is in the bones, and the most common symptom women have is either pain or a fracture when that happens."
When Breast Cancer Spreads to the Bones
To monitor bone metastasis is "actually pretty difficult on imaging," Dr. Nangia explained.
"So you can get serial bone scans every three months along with CT scans," she continued. "But the number one symptom that has really been shown to show if bone metastases are growing or not is how the patient feels. So if a woman is developing new pain in their bones, it could be a sign that the cancer is starting to grow."
Dr. Nangia told SurvivorNet that the question she gets asked the most once patients finish treatment is: "Now what?"
"When we watch women after their treatments to look for if the cancer comes back or not, we don't do any type of specific scans," she explained. "So CT scans, bone scans, tumor markers they're not indicated for looking for recurrence in breast cancer. What we're looking for are new symptoms that last for two weeks or more."
"The reason we picked that timeline is (because) normal things happen to normal people," Dr. Nangia added.
She said she isn't talking about someone lifting a body and straining a muscle in their back that's normal pain.
"But most normal things will be getting better by two weeks," she said. "So if you have had a history of breast cancer and you have new symptoms, whatever they may be, if they've lasted more than two weeks, you really need to go to your regular doctor to see if that's something you should be concerned about or need extra tests to work up."
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
