Improvement of survival and prospect of cure in patients with metastatic breast cancer. Breast Cancer 2012 Jul;19(3):191-9
Date
05/14/2011Pubmed ID
21567170Pubmed Central ID
PMC3860359DOI
10.1007/s12282-011-0276-3Scopus ID
2-s2.0-84866367880 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 58 CitationsAbstract
Patients with metastatic breast cancer have traditionally been considered incurable with conventional treatment. However, 5-10% of those patients survive more than 5 years, and 2-5% survive more than 10 years. Recent studies suggest that the survival of patients with metastatic breast cancer has been slowly improving. In this review, we examine the possible curative approach for a certain group of patients with metastatic breast cancer. We identify that patients most likely to benefit from such an aggressive approach are young and have good performance status, adequate body functional reserve, long disease-free interval before recurrence, oligometastatic disease, and low systemic tumor load. An aggressive multidisciplinary approach including both local treatment of macroscopic disease and systemic treatment of microscopic disease can result in prolonged disease control in certain patients with metastatic breast cancer. Whether patients with prolonged disease control are "cured" remains controversial.
Author List
Cheng YC, Ueno NTAuthor
Yee Chung Cheng MD Associate Professor in the Medicine department at Medical College of WisconsinMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
Age FactorsAntineoplastic Agents
Bone Neoplasms
Brain Neoplasms
Breast Neoplasms
Female
Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
Humans
Liver Neoplasms
Lung Neoplasms
