Ask the Experts: What are my treatment options for metastatic breast cancer?

There are many treatment options for metastatic breast cancer, depending on its type.

Transcript

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I've been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. What are my treatment options and how do we decide what's right for me?

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MARYAM LUSTBERG: Thank you for your question. I want to emphasize that metastatic breast cancer has

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many, many options and we are continuing to advance our therapies. Breast cancer is not one type of cancer.

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We have hormonally-driven breast cancer. And for that type of breast cancer, some type of an estrogen blocking or estrogen reducing

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therapy, also known as endocrine therapy, is really the mainstay of treatment.

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These treatments may be coupled with other targeted therapies or smart therapies to help them work better.

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We have breast cancers that are very much driven by an extra protein expression called HER2.

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And HER2-positive tumors have a range of HER2-targeted therapies.

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These may include antibodies. They may include targeted therapies. They may even include chemotherapy

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in combination with any of these therapies, or a new class of drugs known as antibody-drug conjugates, which

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are a smarter way of delivering chemo inside the tumor cells. There are also a portion of breast cancers

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that are known as triple-negative. These are not driven hormonally and they're not driven by HER2.

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The main treatment options for this subtype of breast cancer is chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and antibody-drug conjugate

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therapy. We have lots of wonderful options to both manage the disease and help you to continue to enjoy life.