BREAST CANCER RESEARCH RIGHT NOW! #78: The “Future” of Breast Cancer

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

Every month, I’ll be highlighting breast cancer research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you. Today: Is it WHEN or IF there will be a cure for breast cancer…and can there even BE a single cure?

With the rapid development of a vaccine against the COVID19 virus, I started to wonder if the advances made developing it would spill over into the fight against breast cancer. While it seems to be at least a POSSIBILITY a huge roadblock stands in the way.

"Experts now know that breast cancer isn’t one single disease. There are many different types of breast cancer with different causes and treatments.”

Where COVID19 was a single virus – even though variants continue to pop up – it was the same virus that infected everyone; breast cancer has not only variants, but entirely different diseases, so we could never do a massive campaign against breast cancer the way it was carried out against COVID19. At any rate, I’ll go into this more in a later essay, but for now, I’ll shelve the vaccine investigation and move on to my initial question, “Is there a cure for breast cancer?”

One similarity between COVID19 and the varieties of breast cancer was that its treatment depends on a number of factors. Every body’s response to the challenge to the immune system, whether it was COVID19 or breast cancer was different. Socioeconomic status (how rich/poor/employed/unemployed/where they live, etc.) also has an impact. The SES of both COVID19 and breast cancer victims determines the recovery of that person. As well, the stage of the cancer, its location, number, and size of tumors; the molecular and genetic characteristics of the cancer; and the overall health and treatment priorities of each patient will affect the success of any cancer (or COVID19) treatment.

The short and sweet of breast cancer and its treatment is, “There’s still no cure for breast cancer that has spread to distant parts of the body. However, treatment can help prolong and improve quality of life in people with MBC.”

Perhaps the first thing that is done when doctors discover breast cancer is to identify the type and stage.

Once that happens, oncologists (cancer doctors) can talk with the patient and devise a treatment plan. For my wife’s oldest friend, the treatment was a lumpectomy and radiation. For her, it was a double mastectomy followed by aggressive chemotherapy. It all depends. We live in a wealthy country, and perhaps the country with the highest level of technology to deliver healthcare. Does it GET to us? No idea (I also discovered that it depends entirely on the source of the ranking – which of course, can be deeply affected by the agenda of the organization issuing the ranking.) In the state I live in, The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN is among the top 10 cancer care hospitals in the country. As might be said for any of the hospitals so ranked, there is inevitably a “trickle down” effect. While the main work is done at the ranked hospital, everyone knows that you can move “up the ranks” as you search for treatment for your own, personal diagnosis.

Some types of breast cancers are: Estrogen receptor-positive; Progesterone receptor-positive, Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive, estrogen receptor-negative, progesterone receptor-negative, HER2-negative. Breast cancer is also identified by where it was found in the breast as well as if it has progressed to the lymph nodes. Each step of diagnosis determines the treatment plan.

At any rate, I’ve detailed different types of treatments on the blog, the end result right now of course, is that “There’s still no cure for breast cancer that has spread to distant parts of the body.”

At least for now!

Resources: https://www.healthline.com/health/breast-cancer/breast-cancer-cure, BC Vaccine - https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/personalized-cancer-vaccines-for-breast-pancreatic-cancers-show-promise/ Best Cancer Treatment Hospitals: https://appliedradiationoncology.com/articles/top-cancer-hospitals-named-for-2020-2021 Image: https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/breast-cancer-vaccine-royalty-free-image-1571330334.jpg?crop=0.668xw:1.00xh;0.175xw,0&resize=480:*