Survival of metastatic breast cancer to other organs?

My Mum had breast cancer when she was 39 and had radiation therapy. She was fine and then 15 years later discovered it had come back with a vegeance. She has fought it for the past few years and has now discovered this year that it has spread to her lungs (4 tumours), spine (T7), and her brain (7, small – 2mm, slow-growing tumours). She also had to have fluid from around her heart drained and that was full of cancer cells. She is having heavy duty chemotherapy (she has not had chemo before now), then radiation on her brain, and then more chemo.

The doctors have always said it will not save her life, just extend. I just want some estimate of time. I have written on here already but didnt really get any sufficient answers. I know I cannot be getting a definite answer, I just want to know if she is looking at 6 mns, 1yr, 2 yrs, 3 yrs etc? I dont want to be thinking 5 yrs if she doesnt have that long and I dont want to be thinking 6 months if its longer. I just want ppls opinions pls

Unfortunately, the you and the previous respondant are correct, and there is no way to know for certain how long her lifespan will be. The medical community is notoriously bad at predicting life-span, and patients will frequently surprise us by living much longer or also much shorter than expected.

The reason for the errors is that we base estimates in studies of large populations of people, and typically give the median (not average) survival. This means if you look at 100 people with metastaic breast cancer, we tell you how long the 50th person lived. Of course, there is a 1st person who likely passed away within 1 week and the 100th who likely lived many years, but this number will give families a ball-park to guide there expectations.

You describe your mother’s disease quite well, and certainly some estimates can be given based upon this. However, without seeing her current health, and knowing details of her tumours, the estimates will still be very rough – and again simply estimates.

Unfortuantely your mother has breast cancer that has recurred, and now is found spread to 3 different organs, and growing. Because of this her prognosis is limited. Patients with multiple brain metastases have a median survival of 6-8 months with radiation, and I should tell you the fact that she has other sites of involvement would tend to make this lean toward the lower end of this range (~6 months).

To re-iterate, however, depending upon other factors her prognosis may be slightly better. Clearly since she is receiving chemotherapy and radiation, she is still functionally and cognitively reasonably well, which improves prognosis. If she did not receive chemotherapy her first time around, and now responds well to the chemotherapy, then this also will improve her prognosis. Finally, if her cancer has characteristics that will make it responsive to hormonal therapy or biologic therapy (Herceptin) then this also can very signficantly improve her outlook.

Based upon what you have indicated, I would estimate that a typical survival would be ~6-12 months, but the factors listed above could improve (or worsen) this.

Finally, I should mention that while the 15-20% 5-year survival is technically correct, this is a number for all individuals involved, and likely less applicable to your mum. In particular the longer-term (5-year) survivors are typically those who have never been diagnosed with breast cancer before, and those who have only 1 site of metastatic disease. While I’m not trying to be negative here, I get the impression that you really do want an honest estimate of what you can expect.

Good luck. Do not hesitate to clarify anything. I really hope this helps.

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