Leaving a Legacy
- Late icon Olivia Newton-John, who the world mourned in 2022 after she lost her third fight with breast cancer, was an inspiration for cancer survivors and female artists all over the world — and a supporter of megastar Taylor Swift, who once covered her song, Hopelessly Devoted to You, at age 12.
- The Grease star, who died at age 73, spoke with SurvivorNet in 2019 of her inspirational mindset while living with cancer, considering herself “lucky” for living every day and every hour.
- Though it can be scary to find that you have a late-stage cancer, new treatments have improved the outlook for stage four cancer. These new treatments are increasing the lifespan — and quality of life — of women with metastatic disease.
- A lasting message that Newton-John left behind, is to alway follow up with your doctors in order to catch any potential cancer diagnosis at an earlier stage.
Newton-John’s team recalled the memory on Sunday, sharing a throwback pic and original audio clip of Swift (whose mother Andrea is a breast cancer survivor), along with some admirable words from the late singer and actress, who died at 73.
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A Pioneer for Future Female Artists
The British-Australian music powerhouse had shared her words during an interview with the popular “breakfast show,” Sunrise, back in 2017, reported by Daily Mail, comparing her rise to fame with those of today who are exponentially more scrutinized with social media.
“I think it’s difficult for people like Taylor. Everything she does, everything she says, is recorded and people commenting on it,” she shared. “I kind of see the internet and social media like, in the old days you’d be over the back fence talking to someone, around the hills hoist or something.”
” … everybody is involved with your business,” Newton-John had added of the enhanced pressure brought by today’s technology.
Reflecting on her own career, the four-time Grammy winner expressed how “grateful” she was at the time.
RELATED: Olivia Newton-John’s Cancer Journey and How She’s Helped Others
“I feel so, so lucky to have the success I’ve had. It started way back and I’m still working, so that’s good!”
An Inspiration for Cancer Survivors
Newton-John — who is survived by her husband, movie producer John Easterling, 71, and her daughter, singer Chloe Lattanzi, 37 — shared similar sentiment with SurvivorNet in 2019 on her overall gratitude while living with cancer.
“I’ve adjusted to living with cancer, which I’m very lucky to say I’m able to do,” she told SurvivorNet. “I’m doing really well. This journey has increased my gratitude, really, because when you’ve had cancer a few times and don’t know the outcome, you’re grateful for the moments you’re having, or the days you’re having, or the hours you’re having. I think it’s also made me more accepting.”
Though fans were in mourning just three years later when the devastating news broke in August 2022, the radiant light and activism Newton-John spread, her artistic works and beautiful music will be forever stamped on our society.
Olivia’s Breast Cancer Journey
Olivia Newton-John was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992. To treat her cancer, she had chemotherapy and a partial mastectomy (surgical removal of cancerous breast tissue). In 2017, Newton-John’s cancer returned and doctors found that it had spread to other parts of her body. She underwent radiation to treat it.
Newton-John battled stage 4, metastatic breast cancer, which means the cancer had spread to distant areas of the body. Even though there is currently no cure for metastatic breast cancer, doctors have many options to treat this stage advanced stage of breast cancer.
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Hormone therapy, chemotherapy and targeted drugs are all options to talk to her doctor about, depending on your individual needs.
Sometimes surgery and/or radiation is considered as part of the treatment, but mainly it is important to focus on improving your quality of life, as Newton-John so publicly strived to do each and every day.
Learning More About Metastatic Breast Cancer
Stage four breast cancer means that your cancer has spread to distant areas of the body. It is no longer regionalized to the breast. It is also known as metastatic breast cancer. While there is no cure for metastatic breast cancer, doctors have a lot of options to treat this stage of advanced disease and more options are being studied and developed constantly. The current treatment options include hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and targeted drugs. Sometimes surgery and/or radiation is considered.
With advanced disease, the goal of treatment is to keep you as stable as possible, slow the tumor growth, and improve your quality of life.
Though it can be scary to find that you have a late-stage cancer, new treatments have improved the outlook for stage four cancer. These new treatments are increasing the lifespan of women with metastatic disease.
Targeted therapies
For women with HER2-positive breast cancer, meaning they have high levels of a protein called HER2 on the surface of their cancer cells, targeted treatments are available. The drugs trastuzumab (Herceptin) and pertuzumab (Perjeta) have transformed the outlook for some women with late-stage breast cancers.
These therapies, which are often combined with chemo, are very effective at controlling breast cancer once it has spread.
Immunotherapy
Another big advancement has come in the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer. This has historically been one of the most aggressive and hardest to treat forms of the disease, because it lacks any of the main drivers of breast cancer the estrogen receptor, the progesterone receptor, and the HER2 receptor and it doesn’t respond to treatments that target these receptors.
Now, in addition to chemotherapy, immunotherapy has been approved to treat triple-negative breast cancer. In studies, this new therapy has been shown to extend the lives of women with this type of cancer.
“The question now becomes, is it only triple negative breast cancer that can benefit from immunotherapy, or are there other subtypes as well?” Dr. Sylvia Adams, a medical oncologist at NYU Perlmutter Cancer Center, told SurvivorNet in a previous interview.
“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.”
CDK4/6 inhibitors
For postmenopausal women with hormone-receptor-positive and HER2-negative breast cancers, a newer class of drugs called CDK4/6 inhibitors are available. These drugs have been shown to improve survival in some women with metastatic cancer.
These CD4/CD6 drugs work to decrease the amount of estrogen that can be taken into a cancer cell, with the goal of slowing the rate at which that cancer cell can expand.
Catching Breast Cancer Early
Getting annual mammograms and staying on top of your health in general is the best way to prevent getting diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer.
During her 2019 interview with SurvivorNet, Olivia Newton-John had shared a very important message that can continue to encourage women to be proactive with their health for years to come:
“Research and follow your own instincts because if you’re told, and I hear this from women, ‘Oh, the doctor said I was fine but I kind of felt I wasn’t but I didn’t follow it up.’ Follow it up!” she told SurvivorNet. “Women have that knowingness about ourselves like we do about our kids. If you follow it up and it turns out nothing’s wrong, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. That’s good news.”
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