[UPBEAT MUSIC]
NARRATOR: A small lump's often
the first sign that something's
not right.
With breast cancer, this lump
is just a bunch of cells that
grow in a place they're not
supposed to.
Your body can normally spot
cancerous cells like this,
but some cancer cells can trick
the immune system to pass them
by, so they grow freely.
Left unchecked, the irregular
cells can break away and spread
to other parts of your body
to make new growths.
When that happens,
it's called metastatic breast
cancer.
Used to be, there were only
three ways to fight cancer.
SANDRA GREGORY: Breast cancer
was the domain of surgeons
and breast cancer was treated
predominantly
with a radical mastectomy.
NARRATOR: You could cut it out
with surgery,
blast it with radiation,
or minimize it
with chemotherapy.
But each of these methods
was intrusive and often caused
damage to healthy parts
of the body.
But now, that's changing.
SANDRA GREGORY: The future
of breast cancer treatment
is very exciting.
We have a lot of new agents
coming down the pike
and we're very excited and very
hopeful.
NARRATOR:
And these new treatments are
especially promising for women
with metastatic breast cancer.
SANDRA GREGORY: The really hot
area now for advanced breast
cancer is definitely
immunotherapy.
NARRATOR: Researchers wanted
to find a way to use the body's
immune system as a partner
in crime
to help wipe out cancer.
They started by trying
to understand how cancer gets
around the body's warning system
to avoid being attacked.
Once they discovered that,
they found ways to stop it.
With immunotherapy, you can
teach your own body how to fight
against the cancer cells.
So how does that work?
Well, the immunotherapy
instructs your T cells, who are
the fighter pilots
of your immune system,
to attack specific cancer cells.
And this allows
your own immune system to help
fight your cancer.
SANDRA GREGORY: Immunotherapies
are often given
as a second-line approach
if a patient has
metastatic disease
and has a failure to more
conventional chemotherapy.
This is certainly
the bright spot for the next 5
or 10 years in advanced breast
cancer.
NARRATOR: Another mode of attack
is through hormones.
See, breast cancer can be fueled
by different hormones;
estrogen or progesterone.
By testing the biomarkers
of your cancer, they can use
that information against it.
SANDRA GREGORY: Hormone therapy
is
excellent
in the total comprehensive
package towards treating
advanced breast cancer.
It's often an estrogen blocker,
meaning it's a medication that
gets into the estrogen receptors
and blocks the estrogen
receptors on the outside
of the tumor cells.
We also have
anti-estrogen therapy
to actually slow down
the production of estrogen.
NARRATOR: So if the cancer cells
are fueled by hormones,
hormone therapy can effectively
starve the cells to keep them
from multiplying.
With metastatic breast cancer,
it's best to reach all parts
of the body, any place cancer's
spread.
With targeted drug therapy,
you can do that,
but it used to be in the 1990s
this type of cancer drug
would damage or cause
side effects in lots of cells
throughout your body, even
normal ones.
But now,
with biological advances,
targeted cancer therapies
can pinpoint the cancer cells
more specifically
without harming normal cells
that are nearby.
SANDRA GREGORY: We're
able to treat patients
in shorter courses
now than we used to,
so their lifestyles are much
more unaffected by treatment.
They can continue with a very
normal life.
The future for patients
with advanced breast cancer
is so much more optimistic now
than it was 30 or 40 years ago.
NARRATOR: Even
classic treatments,
like radiation therapy,
have gotten better over time.
SANDRA GREGORY: It used to be
that a lot of breast cancer
patients
had very stiff chest walls
from radiation therapy, a lot
of scar tissue.
So we have very directed
treatment now through computer
spatial visualization, computer
planning, so that patients don't
have side effects the way
they used to.
NARRATOR: Advancements in body
imaging
make it possible for radiation
to be very tightly focused,
resulting in far less scarring
and damage
to the surrounding tissue.
Using these kinds of therapies
has resulted in improved
outcomes for patients,
better quality of life,
and fewer side effects.
SANDRA GREGORY: We're
able to treat patients
in shorter courses
now than we used to.
It used to be
that a standard course of breast
cancer took 6 weeks or 6 and 1/2
weeks.
And now, we have large trials
supporting treating patients
over 2 or 3 weeks,
so their lifestyles are much
more unaffected by treatment.
NARRATOR: You no longer need
to have the same generic
treatment as everyone else,
because your cancer isn't like
everyone else's.
No two cases are the same.
SANDRA GREGORY: The most
tremendous gains in cancer
research
have to do with DNA sequencing.
NARRATOR: In future, thanks
to the exciting work scientists
have done in mapping the 140,000
genes of the human genome,
precision medicine
and personalized treatments
will become more
available to everyone.
[UPBEAT MUSIC]