A diagnosis of Stage IV metastatic breast cancer sounds like a death sentence. And, for some, it can be. It is both inoperable and incurable.
But cancer experts say the disease is treatable, and its victims' prognoses vary as widely as their individual cancers.
Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, learned Monday that her breast cancer, first diagnosed and treated in 2004, has turned up in her bones.
But chemical, hormonal and biological drug therapies can be used to keep it in check, said Dr. Michael Schultz, director of the breast center at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson. "It's not a terminal illness, it's a chronic illness. I've seen patients live for 18 or 20 years."
John Edwards announced the diagnosis yesterday in Chapel Hill, N.C., but said neither he nor his wife would suspend campaigning.
"It's true her cancer will not be cured now. She will have this as long as she is alive," he said. "But you treat it and you take your medicine, and that is exactly what we intend to do. ... . We will be in this every step of the way together."
Most women with metastatic breast cancer are able to remain "fully functional. ... It's quite possible Mrs. Edwards should be able to achieve her goals in life," said Dr. Katherine Tkaczuk, director of the breast evaluation and treatment program at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center.
Breast cancer death rates have been on the decline since the early 1990s, the result of advances in preventing, diagnosing and treating the disease. Also, a 7 percent year-to-year drop in new cases was seen in 2003, according to data released in December by the National Cancer Institute.
The sudden decline has been attributed to women ceasing hormone therapy to treat menopause symptoms after scientists in 2002 linked the therapy to increased cancer risk. The hormones are suspected of stimulating the growth of tiny, undetectable cancer cells.
Still, the disease is expected to strike more than 178,000 American women this year and to kill more than 41,000. Elizabeth Edwards had the most common type of breast cancer, ductal carcinoma, which invades the milk ducts.
Doctors typically treat the disease by surgically removing tumors. Surgery is often followed by radiation and chemotherapy drugs intended to kill any remaining cancer cells.
