Is stage 4 cancer curable?

Honey1996

Hello! I am new here. My family is taking care of my aunt with a stage 4 breast cancer. We don't wanna lose hope she'll still recover.

Anonymous

Its treatable, but not curable. Treatment can extend for years to keep the cancer at bay, however, and allow those with stage 4 to live a (fairly) normal life for a long time.

Honey1996

Thank you! What is the safest treatment can you recommend?

Moderators

Hi Honey, and welcome to Breastcancer.org! We're sorry for your aunt's diagnosis but glad you're here for information and support.

If you want to learn more on different treatment options for Stage IV breast cancer, here are a couple of articles in our main site that you may find helpful:

Stage IV Treatment Options | Breastcancer.org

Metastatic Breast Cancer Treatment and Planning

Anyway, please remember that each patient and each cancer is different, therefore treatment must be individualised depending on the patient, the disease and the stage, etc.

Hope this helps. Best wishes to you and your aunt!

The Mods

exbrnxgrl

honey,

As stated, stage IV is not curable, but can sometimes be treated for extended periods of time. I say sometimes because the sad reality is that the majority of stage IV bc patients will succumb to the disease. A small minority of us are outliers/exceptional responders. I say this not to be discouraging, but to illustrate the current reality. On a positive note, in the 8 1/2 years that I have lived with stage IV, quite a few new treatments have helped extend life.

As for treatment, please remember that breast cancer is a disease with many variations. Treatment depends on hormone receptor status (ER, PR, HER2) as well as what type of metastases (most common bc mets are to liver, lung, bone, brain). There is no one recommended treatment as there are quite a few individual factors that go into making treatment decisions.

Exceptional responders do exist. Though we are the minority, some progress is being made. All the best to your aunt and your family

arolsson

I've noticed that a lot of information given about Stge 4 is that is "chronic" and for a few lucky ones, they do find a hormone therapy or even chemo that keeps them steady for a long time. What you have to come to terms with if you are more like the rest of us, is balancing physical and emotional pain and other side affects against something that could give you a new months more to live. I am glad to some of the meds I was offered, others were a nightmare that took my hair, put me in adult diapers, burned the fingerprints off my hands and feet (try crossing an international border without fingerprints) and permanent neuropathy. Make the doctors be REALISTIC even when it means they don't know. So much depends on her age, diagnosis. GOOD lucK