What is Oligometastatic Breast Cancer? All You Need to Know

What is oligometastatic breast cancer? What are the treatment options? Join Dr. Jennifer Griggs in this video as she explains everything you need to know about oligometastatic breast cancer.
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Disclaimer: Yerbba KZbin videos are for informational purposes only, do not constitute medical advice, and are not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your medical team, mental health professional, or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding your medical condition.

[@gumbylovesyou]

Thank you so, so much for doing a video on oligometastatic breast cancer! I am in this category (only two bone mets), and I'm also MBC de novo. It's great to see more awareness of these subgroups of MBC. The question this video raises for me is that is has me wondering (even more than I already was) if I shouldn't seek a second opinion at a different cancer center than the one where I'm being treated, because I have NOT been offered radiation, but only because it's against institutional policy -- they consider treating oligometastatic BC differently than other MBC as still being too controversial. The way it was explained to me was that studies don't show that localized treatment improves outcomes. However, there are patients with very similar diagnoses to mine in my online support groups who *have* had radiation and even surgery, and in fact have been treated with so-called "curative intent." So chances are I will seek a second opinion, while continuing on the standard-of-care systemic therapy that I've started. In any case, thanks so much for covering this topic!! 🙏💙💗💚

[@yerbba]

Thanks for writing. Seeking a second opinion is certainly an option. There are studies being done in people with de novo oligometastatic disease that have been very promising.

[@user-gq5cn6wv9l]

Very informative - thank you, Dr. Griggs! I am one of the girls with more metastases unfortunately...it is no fun to be stage IV 😢.

[@yerbba]

Thank you for watching and sharing with the Yerbba community. It's undoubtedly a difficult journey.

[@user-rf8qv2ys3e]

Hello Doctor, you are simply great, providing good and positive information about cancer, our patient is on palbace and Letrozole she was having bone only lesions. She had SBRT also. What about survival rate for OMBC patients .

[@yerbba]

Thanks for the positive feedback. For people with oligometastatic disease, the life expectancy can be quite long, particularly if there are lesions in the bone, lymph nodes, and skin. People with oligometastatic disease with liver, lung, and brain metastases can also live a very long time, even decades. There are some people who have a much shorter life expectancy. Doctors usually can estimate the prognosis based on the response to the first treatment.

[@user-rf8qv2ys3e]

@@yerbba thanks for your reply, patient had PET Scan last week , result is very much Normal, she is Cancer Free again now . She is on Palbace and Leteozole from last 9 months

[@sakshampathak9019]

​@@user-rf8qv2ys3e Hi haary ..my mom will diagnosed with the same and on same line of treatment ..can you share time interval when the diseases become normal and she became cancer free and when they started giving SBRT.. because in my case there is no SBRT because she diagnosed this june

[@naththomas9946]

Thank you for the informative medical advice.

[@yerbba]

Thank you for your support.

[@tttony9426]

all endocrine therapies are geared to stop the production of estrogen Correct,,So wont having a complete histerectomy plus both ovaries removed replace the drugs such as tomoxofine ????? thank you

[@yerbba]

Great question. We'll restrict this answer to the ovaries alone. Removal of the uterus is not required. Even after removal of the ovaries, the body still makes plenty of estrogen. We know that the addition of tamoxifen or the aromatase inhibitors can prevent even more breast cancer recurrences.

[@aliciamagcalas899]

Good evening doctora. How do you treat invasive ductal carcinoma with lobular features,,, stage 1A grade 2 with triple negative receptors. How many cycles of chemo is needed? And types of chemo meds can you suggest please Thank you

[@yerbba]

Thank you for writing. Although we cannot give specific medical advice without being a part of your care team, we can say that in general, 3 to 6 months of chemotherapy is given depending on the specific combination of drugs and other features of the tumor.

[@freecloudfish]

How about the neck area?

[@yerbba]

If the cervical spine is affected, radiation therapy can be given to people who have oligometastatic disease. If the disease is in a lymph node over the clavicle on the same side of the tumor, we treat with curative intent. If it is on the other side from the cancer, this is Stage IV and, if this is the only site of disease, we can do radiation therapy and sometimes even surgery.

[@dkb333]

Now I'm confused... I think most of us in this situation start out with removal of the breast tumor and sentinel biopsy before they even consider looking elsewhere in our bodies. So you're saying that the tumors don't need to be removed and that they should check our whole body first?

[@yerbba]

We can understand the confusion. This video applies only to people who have known metastatic disease. People with metastatic disease at the time of their very first diagnosis have symptoms that prompt their medical team to look for disease disease. For early stage breast, scans are generally not done unless someone has Stage III (3) disease (and then only about half the time) or symptoms that are worrisome for advanced disease. Hope this helps.