Special Considerations for Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC)
Your team, your care, and you working together
Living with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) can be an emotional and uncertain experience. While MBC is not curable at this time, progress continues every year as new treatments are developed and improved. Your care is centered on what matters most to you—your comfort, priorities, and quality of life—as you move through an illness that may change over time.
How Your Team and Treatment Work for You
Here are the main goals that guide your care and help you live as fully and comfortably as possible with MBC.
Reducing Symptoms and Slowing Progression
Your team works to manage symptoms and help prevent cancer from spreading to new areas. This can ease discomfort, support quality of life, and delay additional symptoms as time goes on.
Supporting Comfort and Day-to-Day Wellness
Treatment also focuses on helping you feel as well as possible—physically, emotionally, and socially. Addressing symptoms like pain can make daily life feel more manageable.
Maintaining Physical Functioning and Independence
Your care team aims to help you stay active and independent for as long as possible by preserving your ability to do daily tasks that matter to you.
Supporting Emotional and Spiritual Well-Being
Your needs may shift throughout the course of MBC. Your care team prioritizes your mental health and emotional resilience, whether through counseling, support groups, prayer, or other meaningful sources of comfort.
Prolonging Survival
One important goal of treatment is to help you live longer. MBC treatments aim to control the disease and slow its growth.
Minimizing Treatment Side Effects
Some side effects can be difficult or disruptive. Your team will work to identify and treat them early so they do not take away from your comfort or your quality of life.
Personalizing Your Care
Your treatment plan is tailored to your specific type of breast cancer, genetic markers, prior treatments, and your own goals. Personalized care often leads to options that are both more effective and better tolerated.
Setting Your Priorities in Your Care Plan
Your priorities may change over time and that is expected. Factors such as your overall health, the type of cancer you have, and your personal preferences will help guide each step of decision-making. No matter where you are in your MBC journey, your care team is there to build a plan with you and for you that reflects your wishes, your comfort, and your hopes.
How Your Care Team Supports You
Your care team will partner with you to create a treatment plan that reflects your goals and supports your quality of life. And because your goals may shift over time, regular conversations with your team are essential.
Understanding Survival Rates
Survival rates describe how many people with a similar type and stage of cancer are alive a certain amount of time after diagnosis. They can’t tell you exactly what your future will look like, but they can help you understand how treatments tend to work for people in situations like yours. Some people want this information, and others prefer not to know. Either choice is completely valid.
Questions You Might Ask Your Doctor
If you want to explore survival statistics, these questions can guide the conversation:
- How long, on average, will this treatment work for my cancer?
- If this therapy stops working, what other options do I have?
- What is the average amount of time someone with my type of cancer may live?
What is remission, and can it happen with MBC?
Remission means that there are no symptoms of cancer and medical tests do not show any evidence of disease. Your care team may also use the phrase “no evidence of disease.” When it comes to metastatic breast cancer (MBC), remission can happen but is rare. The possibility depends on the specific type of breast cancer you have and your response to treatment.
What happens if your MBC treatment stops working?
You’ll stay on your current treatment for as long as it keeps the cancer stable and you’re feeling well enough to continue. If it stops working, your care team will recommend the next treatment or discuss clinical trials.
It’s common to switch treatments over the course of MBC. Cancer cells can become resistant to one therapy, and when they do, your team will help you transition to another option.
Why might I stop treatment?
At some point in your metastatic breast cancer care, you may choose to shift your focus toward comfort and quality of life rather than continuing cancer-directed treatment. This decision can stem from many reasons—such as difficult side effects, how well the treatment is working, fewer treatment options, changes in your day-to-day well-being, or personal priorities that matter deeply to you. Whatever the reason, it is your choice, and you deserve clear information and support as you consider your options.
There may also come a time when continuing treatment may be more harmful than helpful. At this time, you and your care team will discuss how best to support you based on your goals.
Questions to Ask Your Care Team
- How will I know when continuing cancer treatment is no longer the best option for me?
- If I stop treatment, who will oversee my medical care moving forward?
- What types of care and support are available if I decide to end cancer-directed treatment?
- At what point would hospice care be recommended or helpful?
If you reach a point where comfort becomes your priority, your team will support you with compassion and care that centers your needs.
