Mother has new progression after a year on ibrance

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Jennmadd
Jennmadd Member Posts: 36
edited July 2018 in Stage IV/Metastatic Breast Cancer ONLY

I hope it’s ok to post here as I have gotten so much useful information from reading in this thread. You ladies are amazing and the way you support each other is inspiring.

My mom was diagnosed stage 4 from the beginning. Found out it was breast cancer in February and by March 2017we knew it was stage 4. The last two scans have shown progression and we are having to try something new. She was taking Ibrance and letrozole and it worked great thus far. She has mets to bones and the tiny lesions in her lungs have grown tripled their size. Also lesions on her liver have shown up on the last scan. I can’t find a thread specifically for bone, lung, and liver met.

If anyone is taking medicine other than the one she tried and it’s working please let me know what it is and quality of life on it. They had her try afinitor and fulvestrant which made her feel awful so she stopped taking it. Her white counts are at its lowest so she is taking nothing at the moment. Please help me help her.

Jennifer

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  • MuddlingThrough
    MuddlingThrough Member Posts: 726
    edited July 2018

    Hi I'm too new in my treatments to offer advice but here are links for a couple of threads:

    Bone mets https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/8/topics/...

    Liver mets procedures. https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/8/topics/...

    I hope you, your mom, and the doctors will find the best treatment.

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  • Jennmadd
    Jennmadd Member Posts: 36
    edited July 2018

    Thank you muddelingthrough for your response. I will look through those threads as well. I had hoped more would chime In. Her next appointment is in two weeks and I hope to be able to educate myself on options so I have a clue what her dr is talking about and what questions to ask. It can be very overwhelming

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  • pajim
    pajim Member Posts: 2,785
    edited July 2018

    Jennmadd, the best (and most easily read) thing you can do to educate yourself is to request Bestbird's guide to breast cancer treatments and their sideeffects.

    https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/8/topics/...

    Her guide is very evidence-based and concurs with all the reading I've done of the primary sources, and I work for a medical journal.

    Now on to my interpretation of your question. The normal 2nd step after letrozole & Ibrance would be Faslodex. If your Mom took that with Afinitor I'm not surprised she stopped. Afinitor is nasty nasty stuff. Faslodex on the other hand is very easy to take. It has fewer side-effects than the letrozole & Ibrance.

    If she and her oncologist feel that she is now resistant to hormonal therapy (which she very well may be), then the next logical step is either Xeloda or a clinical trial. The Contessa trial is enrolling -- it is Xeloda either by itself or in combination with another drug. If it had started a year ago I would have happily enrolled. But there may be other trials in your area. If she wants to make a try at immunotherapy generally it's better to do that before the cancer (or her health!) gets too bad. Xeloda is a chemotherapy but it's a pill. Most of the rest of the chemos are i.v.

    I've been taking Xeloda for more than a year. It's OK. Causes hand/foot syndrome at high doses. I'm on a relatively low dose so I have a relatively easy time.

    FYI treatment doesn't really depend on where the mets are. It depends on what they respond to.

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