New approach to treating metastatic bc

Thanks for the link, Deanna!

I wonder, when cells are no longer dependent on glucose, can they still be seen on PET scans? They used bioluminescence in the study to see the shrinking tumors.

 This was interesting: "As calorie restriction is known to elicit profound anti-cancer effects, the ketogenic diet may inhibit cancer progression in part by indirect dietary energy restriction."

As mentioned in the article, other studies have shown that cancer cells can use ketones as fuel. So I'll wait for more studies.

I wonder if any researcher has ever compared rates of cancer, metastasis, progression-free survival and/or overall survival of people on ketogenic diets for weight loss or other reasons, to people not on such diets. Maybe there's a database already existing that would allow such a comparison without having to wait years for a study to be done from scratch. I already follow an eating plan to keep my weight in normal range. I limit my carb intake, especially starches and sweets, but nowhere near enough to put me into ketogenesis. I'm not inclined to change my diet so drastically without some stronger evidence that switching to a ketogenic diet actually increases survival or delays progression in humans with breast cancer.

@bestock, I've never had abraxane or Xeloda. I was on anastrozole for about four months, between mets dx and my first followup scan. At least one of the mets got slightly larger, although a PET scan done around the same time shows no abnormal uptake of glucose, so whatever is going on in there, it's going pretty slowly. I have an unusual form of breast cancer--the tumor has neuroendocrine (aka carcenoid) cells mixed in with the breast cells. So, after discussing my case with a tumor board, my oncologist switched my hormone med to exemestane, and added octreotide, which is a medication used to treat carcenoid tumors. I hope my next scan, in July, shows these changes have brought progression to a complete halt or even shrunk the tumors. I have never had genetic testing, but there's no history of breast (or ovarian or uterine) cancer in my family so I doubt that I have either BRCA gene. My mets were discovered before I finished my initial chemo treatment (although not identified as mets until a month or so after that). I can't prove it, but I suspect I was stage IV at original dx, but since I was (and still am) asymptomatic, it wasn't discovered at the time.

The chemo I did (CMF) caused unsettled stomach, gas and late in the treatment I had bigtime fatigue, and I'm getting a bit of the stomach/gas side effect from the octreotide too, so I sympathize. It's miserable to  never feel quite right.