Onc's take on new treatments...

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azs40
azs40 Member Posts: 99
edited January 2018 in Stage IV/Metastatic Breast Cancer ONLY

I saw my MO last week. While he was waiting for lab results to appear in my electronic chart, I asked him a question: "If you were me, sitting here with you, what's the next treatment you would be excited about?"

Granted, I just barely completed my first round of Ibrance, but....

Like he usually does, there was a touch of "WTF?" on his face, but he humored me with a response:

"The PARP inhibitors." (I'm BRCA +)

So then I asked, "And then what?"

"Immunotherapy, though they don't typically work on breast cancers. But they're working on that."

I know I'm early days in my mets diagnosis, and forgive me, please, if I'm repetitive, but I want a long list of "then whats." I need hope. I'm tired and my white blood cells didn't rebound this week, so I have to have more blood work on Friday. And I'm cranky.

Anyone have hopeful info on concrete coming treatments that might be considered "game-changers" - or am I being naive?



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  • mazie73
    mazie73 Member Posts: 74
    edited January 2018

    My oncologist said PARP inhibitors have shown a lot of promise (I'm BRCA 2). There's also discussion on this board about whether Abemaciclib can be used after Ibrance. I'm currently on Abemaciclib and doing really well.

    But Ibrance is still considered a game changer. A lot of ladies on this board have been on it for a long time. I know someone personally who's had a great response -- she's been on it for more than a yea. Hopefully it'll work just as well for you!


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  • azs40
    azs40 Member Posts: 99
    edited January 2018

    Thank you Mazie. I appreciate your reply. I'm trying to get my arms around all of this.

    So, our goal is to have a good response to a drug, to keep us alive and well-ish until the next better drug, and the next better drug - right?

    For me it always comes down to my 11-year-old daughter. I want to see her through high school. I don't think I'd be as freaked if she wasn't in the picture. And yet, she's my main motivator to keep going, keep fighting, and see her to adulthood.

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  • EV11
    EV11 Member Posts: 127
    edited January 2018

    AZS40- I am a single mom (widow) to a now 14 year old daughter...she was 11 when I was first diagnosed (de novo stage 4)....I fully get your strong desire to be around for her-- andI share that bit of ambivalence you have regarding whether your drive would be as intense without her....I know I would not feel quite so desperate to wring out as many good years as I do because of her.

    I am just completing cycle 34 on Ibrance (my first line treatment along with letrozole and Zometa). At the beginning I never imagined that I might get nearly 3 years on one medication, but it looks increasingly possible for me, and maybe more than that! While the specter of the reality that this disease will likely be the cause of my death is always lurking in the shadows, for the first time since my diagnosis I have hope that I REALLY will live to see her graduate high school....and I'm even having some real hope that I might get to see her graduate college and get launched into adulthood, where being a parentless young adult adult won't create quite the gaping hole in her heart and life that I imagine it would do should I die before she is an independent adult.

    There truly are a number of current medications, as well as new treatments in trials an in the labs, that can carry us from one treatment to the next. Our job is to try to live so that manage and minimize the collateral damage from our treatments so that we are in the best shape we can be in to tolerate the next one that we need to take. It's great to have an eye to the next treatment, but don't let that so consume your thoughts that you forget to enjoy the good life you have right now on your current treatment.

    And do press your one about the PARP inhibitors-- olaparib was approved in October for BRCA1/2 positive MBC (after progression on chemo) so that's definitely one good medication in your future arsenal. Like that your one smiled at your at your question and responded in good humor. He sounds like a keeper.


    Here's to many many many months of great response to Ibrance.

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  • SavedbyGrace1972
    SavedbyGrace1972 Member Posts: 105
    edited January 2018

    Anyone heard of mistletoe being used overseas? Google it. I read an article just today and if I am not mistaken, there is a clinical trial at John Hopkins.

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  • azs40
    azs40 Member Posts: 99
    edited January 2018

    Thank you Mica. I appreciate everyone's replies, but more so those from women with young children. I read your post at a perfect time this afternoon - right after lamenting joint pain in my legs, wondering if it would always be this noticeable, wondering how I can be excited about anything. There are times when I tell my family "I think I'd feel better if I only felt better." I know myself enough to know that this is my treading water stage. Actually swimming may take me a bit, but I hope to get where you are someday, witnessing my own survival, watching my girl grow up and being here -hopeful and incredulous.

    THank you. You helped more than you know.

    -A

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  • singlemom1
    singlemom1 Member Posts: 434
    edited January 2018

    Azs40

    I just wanted to comment that I have a 12 year old daughter and feel very similar to you. She is my driving force behind anything else. It is just the two of us and I am her everything. My goal is to live a very long time to help her go off to college, get married and then help her with my grandchildren. I heard a breast cancer specialist from Dana Farber who has been doing this for 30 years state he believes there will be a cure for breast cancer in the next 10 to 20 years.

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