A friend of mine has stage 4 breast cancer and arthritis in the spine. How long does she have to live?
She has been diagnosed with breast cancer. After all the necessary tests have been taken the doctor seems suspicious that the cancer has spread to the spine. What is the survival rate? How long does she have to live by taking the additional tests and medicine?
There is not a good answer for survival as we are all different. How fast our cancer grows, how easy it spreads, how aggressive it is treated, which means are used to treat it, and most importantly the overall health, strength, conviction of the patient. If it is isolated in one area of the spine it may be handled with chemo or radiation. I lost my mother to breast cancer many years ago. She was a strong fighter and lasted a year of which she went through 5 operations as it had spread many times to different parts of her body. So there is no one answer for this dreaded disease when it attacked our body other than doing the best with what we know. I wish your friend all the best and will keep her in my prayers along with others. I hope this helps. Good luck
With Stage IV, even though the prognosis is terminal, there’s a wide variety of survival times once a woman has been diagnosed with it. Just look at Elizabeth Edwards. She was diagnosed with Stage IV sometime around the end of 2005, and it’s barely noticeable. But survival stats are worthless, because it depends on many factors, the main one being whether she tested positive or negative for hormone receptors. If she tested positive, she can be treated with anti-hormonal therapy in addition to chemo, which is a huge plus. Other factors include age and especially the type of cancer she has.
Bones are the most common place for breast cancer metastases to land, so while the spine sounds scary, (and probably painful) it’s something they’ll treat until the mets are driven back. In general, bone mets are considered less serious than soft tissue mets, which most Stage IV BC patients ultimately get.