My sister is 53 and has been fighting breast cancer for 8.2 years. At the 4.7 year mark the cancer returned in liver, gallbladder and bones. That continues to remain in remission. June 2013 over 20 brain mets. 15 wbrt repeat MRI in nov 2013 revealed 18 left and rad onc felt like wbrt had done all it was going to do because what was left was looking more pronounced. Gk on all 18 sites Looks good until March 2014 MRI where 6 or 7 more places were hit with gk.
My sister is showing signs of memory loss, hearing loss, word finding problems, some task outside of her home environment can be confusing.
She has a repeat MRI tomorrow Results on Friday August 8th.
My concern is more progression if so are there any suggestion or trials you know of??
Can the wbrt cause her cognitive problems I have listed?
She had dcis her2 positive. It was in 9 of 11 lymph nodes She did the standard chemo cocktail herceptin radiation then tamoxifen
Them Gemzar and herceptin for the live gallbladder bones
Currently she get herceptin every 3 weeks a once a month injection for her bones and letrozole(spelling)
Any help suggestion would be so appreciated.
Thank you
Carla
Breast cancer with brain mets - 1265260
carla709
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Reply # - August 3, 2014, 06:52 PM
Reply To: Breast cancer with brain mets
Carla,
It sounds like the brain disease is outpacing the disease outside of her brain. While it may be possible that the WBR caused some of her cognitive issues, it was also clearly necessary and better than the alternative of having her brain metastases progress -- in fact, she almost certainly would have died without the WBR.
While adding the anti-HER2 pill Tykerb (Herceptin) could be helpful, we generally do focus on a "local therapy" like radiation to definitively treat brain metastases.
Good luck.
-Dr. West
Reply # - August 4, 2014, 04:51 PM
Reply To: Breast cancer with brain mets
Thank you for your time and response.