Average survival time has doubled for patient | EurekAlert!

image: Professor Fatima Cardoso view more  Credit: Champalimaud Cancer Centre, Lisbon, Portugal Patients with two out of the three most common types of advanced breast cancer now have an average survival time of at least five years, according to a panel of experts at the Advanced Breast Cancer Sixth International Consensus Conference (ABC 6). [1] When breast cancer spreads to other parts of the body (called metastatic or advanced breast cancer), it becomes harder to treat and average survival times have been low as a result. However, over the last ten years, there has been more research on advanced breast cancer (ABC) meaning that doctors now know much more about how to treat the disease. [2] In a session agreeing new guidelines for treating advanced breast cancer, experts said that more work is needed to find treatments that are effective for the third type of ABC (called triple negative ABC), where average survival times remain lower. The most common subtype of ABC is known as hormonal-dependent or oestrogen receptor-positive (ER+) because its growth is fuelled by the hormone oestrogen. Another subtype is known as HER2+ because the cancer cells make too much of a protein known as HER2, which stimulates their…
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