Healing Through Stage 4 Cancer
- Shannen Doherty may be reigniting details of past feuds on her new podcast Clear the Air, but news outlets need to remember that even as she sparks new headlines, battling stage 4 cancer is no light matter.
- Doherty has shared how “cathartic” it has been to share about her life before and during cancer, which she shared in January had spread to her brain and she was undergoing radiation — then last month, said it had spread to her bones.
- Breast cancer that has spread to the bone is often hormone receptor-positive, which means the cells have either estrogen or progesterone receptors or both, so the first line of attack is hormone therapies.
- Despite the challenging setbacks, Doherty voiced that her spirits are high and she’s not giving up, hoping to participate in clinical trials in the near future as they become available to her. The goal with clinical trials is to make the disease more manageable, like living with a chronic condition.
For her most recent guest, Doherty welcomed her former Charmed costar and “sister,” as she calls her, Holly Marie Combs, and shares how “cathartic” it has been to share about life, which she has typically kept private for the most part.
Read MoreMoving on to discuss the casting process for Charmed, which ran on The WB network from 1998 to 2006, she then gave an example of “the closed-mindedness of Hollywood” at that time.
Doherty said she “fought” for Combs to get the role after she was judged by a casting associate, with Doherty later telling Spelling, “either she does it or I don’t do it.”
Spelling then told Doherty, “I’ll back you.”
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The ladies agreed that all went relatively well the first season, as everything was fresh and new, and everyone got along. Doherty said in season three, she had the “most freedom” and it was her “favorite,” then cracked, “I’m not going to talk about the other seasons because I wasn’t there, so why would I.”
Doherty, who sounded in good spirits throughout the episode, said “there’s something very cathartic about doing a podcast,” especially while living with cancer.
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She said it’s giving her “everything she would be spending $250 an hour for,” suggesting that it’s been a form of therapy for her.
“So I like it so far,” she said, adding that she also likes that she’s in “sweatpants and slippers.”
Doherty’s Breast Cancer Journey
Shannen Doherty was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 after she found a lump in her breast. She underwent hormone therapy, a single mastectomy, which removes the breast tissue from one breast, along with chemotherapy and radiation.
In 2017, she showed no evidence of disease. The actress remained in remission for two years until it unfortunately came back in 2019 as metastatic, or stage 4 cancer.
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Stage 4 breast cancer is incurable, so at this stage, the goal is to keep the patient as comfortable as possible, slow the tumor growth and overall, improve your quality of life.
When Breast Cancer Spreads to the Brain
Earlier this year, Doherty shared a very brave post on Instagram, stating that the cancer had spread to her brain. “My fear is obvious,” she said within the update. In the clip, her eyes poured out tears as she shared “claustrophobic” footage of getting fitted for her head mask in order to undergo radiation to her brain.
“This is what cancer can look like,” she concluded the heavy update.
Since she received her first radiation treatment in January, it’s unclear what her specific treatment has included since then.
“The outlook for any patient with stage 4 cancer is very complex and difficult to assess,” radiation oncologist Dr. James Taylor of GensisCare, who is not involved with Doherty’s care, tells SurvivorNet.
Dr. Taylor explains that stage 4 cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment must be assessed on an “individualized basis,” adding that the prognosis depends on the prevalence of the disease in and outside the brain.
According to Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, treatment for brain metastasis for many patients is “focused on slowing the growth of the malignancy (cancer) and relieving the resulting symptoms.”
Treating Metastatic Breast Cancer
It’s important for other stage 4 breast cancer patients to remember that what Shannen Doherty is experiencing is not necessarily what every person with stage 4 breast cancer experiences, and “only 10-15% of women with stage 4 breast cancer” may experience brain metastasis, says Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky, who is the head of breast and gynecologic medical oncology at Valley Health System.
Dr. Teplinksy is also a clinical assistant professor of medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
When Breast Cancer Spreads to the Bones
Last month, Doherty announced that the cancer had spread to her bones, but shared that her spirits are high and she’s not giving up. She hopes to participate in clinical trials in the near future as they become available to her.
“People just assume that it means you can’t walk, you can’t eat, you can’t work. They put you out to pasture at a very early age — ‘You’re done, you’re retired,’ and we’re not,” she said in a cover interview for PEOPLE. “We’re vibrant, and we have such a different outlook on life. We are people who want to work and embrace life and keep moving forward.”
Breast cancer that has spread to the bone is often hormone receptor-positive. Women may think when this happens they need aggressive chemotherapy, but the first line of attack is hormone therapies.
Hormone therapies are often combined with other medications to improve their efficacy. For example, CD4/CD6 inhibitors are a type of oral medications that are sometimes combined with hormonal therapies to help shrink breast cancers.
Traditionally, there’s a lot of stigmas that if cancer spreads at all, it can be very detrimental. However, it’s important to remember that there are multiple lines of defense in managing breast cancer that has spread to the bones, including participation in a clinical trial.
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Dr. Beth Karlan, a gynecologic oncologist at UCLA Health, tells SurvivorNet that the goal with clinical trials is to advance cancer research to a point where the disease becomes manageable, more like a chronic condition like diabetes.
“Clinical trials hopefully can benefit you, but is also providing very, very vital information to the whole scientific community about the effectiveness of these treatments,” Dr. Karlan said.
“They can be lifesaving. In the last few years, we’ve seen many children and adults who have participated in trials and had miraculous results,” Dr. Karlan continued.
Understanding the Process Behind Clinical Trials
Within the U.S., all new drugs must go through clinical trials before the FDA approves them. Although the rewards of clinical trials can be great, they also come with risks. Talking to your doctor about this before enrolling in a trial is important. Some risks to consider include:
- The risk of harm and side effects due to experimental treatments
- Researchers may be unaware of some potential side effects of experimental treatments
- The treatment may not work for you, even if it has worked for others
- Before you enroll in a trial, you must be allowed to read the consent documents thoroughly and to ask any questions you may have. The documents will likely contain the following:
- The purpose of the research
- Any risks and benefits expected from the research
- Information about procedures that may cause discomfort (like frequent blood tests)
- Any alternative procedures the patient might consider instead
- How the patient’s information will be kept private
- How long the study is expected to take
- A form confirming you are participating in research voluntarily
- Whether any compensation or additional medical care is available if some injury occurs
- The patient’s rights (like the right to stop research in the middle of the trial)
- Contacts for any patient questions
Patients are allowed to walk away at any time during the trial. Understanding your rights as a voluntary patient is important before you participate in a clinical trial, and understanding that the treatment may not work is also crucial.
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