MBC-– Metastatic Breast Cancer is invasive breast cancer that has left the breast and traveled to another location in the body. Whether the cancer cells have landed in the bones or somewhere else, it is still breast cancer in those locations and is treated as breast cancer. When this happens, it is classified as Stage IV. There is no cure, YET.
Treatment Line — I will be on some form of treatment for the rest of my life. These treatments are called treatment lines. I will start with the first, and when that treatment line stops working I will move to my second treatment line, and so on.
In most cases, the progression of the disease (shown through scans/images/monitoring) means that a treatment line isn’t working any longer and that will be the point at which a patient will move on to the next treatment line. There is a standard of care, a general guide, as to how we go about treating this disease. Treatment can look different from one person to the next because each tumor is unique and each body reacts in their own way.
Standard of Care — A general guide for which drugs a patient will get and when they will get them and how much of the drug they will be given.
IDC— Invasive Ductal Carcinoma is the type of breast cancer that I have been diagnosed with. There are other types of breast cancer. Curious about that?….head to google.
Young Women — Usually, in trials and journal articles young women are categorized as those diagnosed with breast cancer under the age of 45 or pre-menopausal.
ER/PR+, HR+ — Both of these mean hormone receptor positive. The cells in my body are hormone receptor positive which means that estrogen, and to some degree progesterone, feed my cancer. The ovaries are the biggest producer of estrogen in a woman’s body.
OS — Ovarian Suppression. Shutting the ovaries down. This can be done chemically with drugs like Lupron or surgically by removing the ovaries. Ovary removal is called an oophorectomy. This is part of my treatment plan.
AI — Aromatase inhibitor. A classification of drug that blocks the absorption of estrogen in the body. I will be on one of these too.
CDK4/6 Inhibitor — This is a complex one, but essentially this is a classification of a drug that stops cells in their replication processes. I will be taking one of the three drugs in this class in my first line of treatment.
Hannah in CancerLand 