For Those of Us with MBC as a Late Recurrance

[Hazelgreen]

Perhaps, in the future, there will be effective monitoring of BC patients...

Published in Oncology

Journal Scan / Research · June 25, 2022

ctDNA and Late Recurrence in High-Risk HR+/HER2– Breast Cancer

Journal of Clinical Oncology

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This prospective study using plasma circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) for minimal residual disease (MRD) detection, detected 10% MRD in patients with high-risk HR+/HER2− breast cancer at least 5 years after diagnosis. Notably, 6 out of 8 patients with detectable ctDNA experienced distant metastatic recurrence, with a median ctDNA lead time of approximately 1 year.

Given the few recurrences in this small cohort with limited follow-up, prospective larger studies are warranted to further inform the utility of MRD detection in this setting, with the hope to personalize treatment and prevent or delay late recurrence among patients with early-stage, high-risk HR+/HER2− breast cancer.

[TammyCross]

They need a bigger sample and a longer follow up to justify this test. They seem to be saying these results are so limited they do not justify general screening.

Are there other tests those of us at risk (only high risk? -determined how?) could take that would be less expensive?

How about tumor markers? When I still was going to the oncologists who treated my original cancer, they gave it every visit. When I thought I had a recurrence 13 years later and couldn't get my primary to test, I told her about the test for tumor markers. She didn't know what it was and asked me to find out! She is at a big hospital with breast oncology program. She should have asked them. I should have gone back to my old team.

I think someone here suggested we should get scans. Not sure what kind. They find my cancer with an xray. Now I have PET scans. They would be good but probably too expensive.

I think this is something we should lobby for. Maybe through LBCC?

[TammyCross in reply to TammyCross]

I should clarify: when I started with this new primary doc at a hospital (Columbia) in 2018, I left the hospital where I had been treated for bc (NYU). We believed the Columbia doc had my care under control. NOT

I was diagnosed in 2019 with a huge mass in my chest (mediastinem) and many mets. I regret not going back to NYU in 2018, of course.

[fancydog]

I think there is some more aggressive prevention of MBC going on but I do not know on what it is based. I know 2 women who had lumpectomies, chemo, radiation and then were put on Letrozole until something better comes along. Myself back in 2002, had lumpectomy, chemo, radiation then tamoxifen, which caused my uterus to become precancerous so the Tamoxifen was stopped after less than 2 full yrs and I was left with nothing. We are all HR+, HER-