Metastatic breast cancer treatment
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Breast Cancer Microchapters |
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Diagnosis |
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Treatment |
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Case Studies |
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Metastatic breast cancer treatment On the Web |
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American Roentgen Ray Society Images of Metastatic breast cancer treatment |
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Risk calculators and risk factors for Metastatic breast cancer treatment |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1], Assistant Editor-in-Chief Jack Khouri
Overview
With rare exception, metastatic breast cancer is an incurable but treatable illness. Currently, it is managed as a chronic disease, especially the category that is ER-positive with predominantly bone or soft tissue metastasis. Chemotherapy, biologic therapy and endocrine therapy are all considered in the treatment of meatastatic breast cancer.
Principles of therapy
- The principles of therapy are prolonging survival, improving quality of life and avoiding treatment-induced toxicity. Given that treatment is palliative, patients should be given treatment holidays in order to reduce drug-induced toxicity.
- HER2 overexpression and hormone receptor status are very important factors that guide therapy and influence prognosis.
- Multiagent chemotherapy regimens don't show significant survival benefit compared to single-drug regimens.