Health & Fitness
Search for the Cure May Leave Women with Metastatic Breast Cancer in the Dust
Women with metastatic breast cancer are the ones dying from breast cancer, so why isn't there more research trials or funding? Read this post to find out.
Metastatic breast cancer is the kind of breast cancer that has spread to the bones or other organs of the body.
Women diagnosed with this type of breast cancer do not survive even though they may live for years after being diagnosed.
Mister Webster will tell you a cure means “the successful treatment of a disease or wound.” In the technical sense of the word, does the search for the cure leave metastatic breast cancer patients in the dust?
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On Monday night I had the privilege of chatting with other oncology professionals and some women living with metastatic breast cancer. The women with MBC are a different shade of pink, perhaps a little bit darker shade, as they force us to deal with the aspect of dying from breast cancer.
Women living with MBC are part of the collective group of breast cancer survivors, yet they are so uniquely different as to deserve to be a group of their own. You will not see many interviews with women living with metastasis nor will you see them crossing the finish line at a breast cancer walk.
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These women still have all the heart and all the courage, but their voices remain silent. It seems as though looking for a cure would mean ending the deaths of women from breast cancer yet the women still dying from breast cancer are those with MBC.
On one hand, there have been huge advances in finding early breast cancer and treating those women so as to “cure” them, but when it comes to the women who face unsurvivable MBC, the research is lacking.
Go to www.clinicaltrials.gov and you will find there are 1,804 clinical trials for metastatic breast cancer as opposed to 2,588 trials for breast cancer. That’s a difference of about 40 percent. More importantly, where is the fundraising? It is rare to see a walk or a charity to support research for MBC. Per 2009 tax filing, Susan G. Komen Foundation donated 40 percent of its $175 million dollars raised to research and “other organizations," but of that research we do not know how much was spent on MBC. Ironically, Susan G. Komen herself died from MBC and Komen Foundation’s slogan is “Race for the Cure."
Why are we not taking tissue from any willing woman with MBC to scrutinize and hopefully develop a successful treatment to prevent metastasis from being a death sentence?
Many other cancers have what is called a tissue consortium or tissue bank that collects tissue from cancer patients all over the country with a specific type of cancer. The point of the tissue bank is to gain an edge in treatment of cancer by having thousands of samples to study. Even, Myeloma has the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation and tissue consortium and this type of cancer causes hundreds of thousands less deaths than breast cancer. In fact, breast cancer is the second leading cause of death for women, so where is this tissue bank? Why don’t big-name breast cancer organizations use the money they raise to get one started in their search for the cure?
Bottom line, money makes the world go round and, for big pharma, this type of research just doesn’t show the dollar signs.
What could be more horrifying than MBC? Elizabeth Edwards was an amazing woman with MBC and she may very well be the face of this disease as she was one of the first to go public with her diagnosis. Yet, in the end, her hubby’s scandalous affair took center stage and, with that, the focus moved away from Elizabeth and her battle with metastasis.
The point of today’s post is to get you to make some noise to support these women and insist fundraisers directly help by donating to MBC research and support for women with MBC. We need a tissue bank, at very least, to get the progress rolling.
Make sure you visit my site at www.mybreastcanceranswers.com for the latest news on breast cancer or, even better, join our forum so you can connect with other women (it's free).
Your friend,
Heather
Here are some great resources/blogs for women with breast cancer metastasis: