Research For The Win

I write today not with an update about me, but about treatments for metastatic (stage 4) breast cancer (MBC).

Within the past week the FDA approved two – yes two! – drugs to be used to treat MBC. This is amazing and gives such hope to so many people with this disease. A third drug had FDA revised approval in 2022 expanding its use with MBC patients.

As I’ve said before, MBC is not curable but it is treatable. This means there are drugs to try to keep the cancer from growing, but eventually they fail. Then you move on to the next drug. Once you run out of drugs you run out of treatment options and the cancer wins.

This is why research is so important! Only through research will we be able to have new drugs developed and hopefully one day find a cure.

The two drugs are Orserdu (Elacestrant) approved January 27, 2023 and Trodelvy (sacituzumab govitecan-hziy) approved February 3, 2023. A third drug has already been a game changer for people I know in treatment. In May 2022, the FDA expanded the uses of Enhertu (Trastuzumab deruxtecan) for use by more MBC patients.

These drugs take many years to get to approval. Most drugs don’t progress far enough through clinical trials to get approved, so this is a big deal to have 3 new options within 6 months!

MBC is not one disease and so not all drugs work with all subtypes of MBC.

Will these three drugs help me? Probably, maybe.

Already we are looking into Orserdu as my next treatment line option. This drug only works well if your cancer has developed a particular mutation (ESR1). The cancer mutates to outsmart the medication. I had blood drawn 2 days ago that is being tested for the mutation.

The other two drugs (Enhertu and Trodelvy) may be options for me a bit later. We shall see.

A HUGE thank you to everyone who shares information about MBC, tells people about my journey and is able to donate to support MBC research.

The national #LightUpMBC fundraising campaign I helped with last fall raised over $500,00 for research and funded 2 scientific research grants specifically focused on MBC. Unfortunately we have to do fund raisers (kind of like a big bake sale) to fund this research because most breast cancer research dollars go to earlier stage.

So again, thank you for being my cheerleaders and for helping me raise awareness of the need for more support for MBC. I appreciate you all.