This podcast with Dr. Angela DeMichele discusses new research into locating dormant breast cancer cells in the bone marrow and treating them to ensure breast cancer does not return. For those who are BC survivors, this is exciting research. Listen to the 30-minute podcast.
Interestingly, hydroxychloroquine and everolimus were two drugs in the study that, alone or together, had an 80% elimination rate against dormant cancer cells (found in the bone marrow).
As someone who has had ER+ breast cancer, I'm not surprised to hear that ER+ cancers come back after 5 years because the cells don't wake up during that time.
This explains why after 5 years the risk increases for ER+, but if you have ER-, then after 5 years you are pretty safe. I received my recurrent stage 4 diagnosis four years after recovery.
This is a quote from Dr. Angela DeMichele that explains why she is researching how to treat dormant breast cancer cells to prevent recurrence.
"And I think this would represent an important advance because up to this point surveillance has been about watchful waiting, and I got into this because, you know, for 15 years I was taking care of patients and we’d get to the end of that initial treatment and they would say well, how do you know it worked, and what are we going to do now, and when am I having my scans? And I would say, look, I don’t have a way to know that and I don’t have a way to monitor you, and that’s very, very stressful for patients. "
Hopefully, there will be enough studies to turn this research into a treatment protocol for BC patients soon!
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