As many of you know October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. What you may not know is that October 13th is Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. Stage 4 breast cancer is the most lethal and so we felt we wanted to raise awareness of the day.

As you know the best way of raising awareness is to educate and inform so we thought we would share “Ten things your should know about Metastatic Breast Cancer”.

These come from the Metastatic Breast Cancer Network who organise Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. We have to say it is a brilliant resource and we do hope you share it with as many people as possible. Do remember that men get breast cancer as well!

1. No one dies from breast cancer that remains in the breast. When cancer cells travel to a vital organ (known as metastatic disease), the cancer threatens life. Typically breast cancer cells travel to the bones, lungs, liver and/or brain.
2. An estimated 155,000 Americans, young and old, females and males, are living with metastatic breast cancer. The exact number is unknown because the NCI SEER Data only count those who have a first diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer.
3. Metastatic breast cancer causes nearly 40,000 deaths annually in the United States. The number of
deaths has not changed significantly over the past twenty years.
4. Although at this time, clinicians cannot cure metastatic breast cancer, the disease is treatable.
Treatment is life-long and focuses on control of the disease while maintaining quality of life.
5. Metastatic (Stage IV) breast cancer is the initial diagnosis for about 5-10% of people living with
metastatic disease. Other patients receive a metastatic diagnosis years after successful treatment for an early stage breast cancer.
6. Early detection and successful treatment of early stage breast cancer does not guarantee that a patient will not develop metastatic disease years later or not die of breast cancer.
7. Little is known about the causes of breast cancer metastasis or why cancer cells travel to specific organs in the body.
8. Among people initially diagnosed with early stage breast cancer, approximately 30% will go on to
develop invasive or metastatic breast cancer 5, 10, 15 or 20 years later. Researchers do not know yet how to prevent this from happening.
9. Just as there are different types of primary breast cancer, there are different types of metastatic breast cancer and they are treated differently. Cures are needed for each type.
10. Little is known about the causes of breast cancer metastasis. Regrettably, only 5% of all breast
cancer research dollars are spent on metastatic breast cancer, yet 95% of deaths from breast cancer occur among those who have advanced or metastatic disease.

Please drop round to the MBCN’s website to find out more about events planned for 13th October 2014.