MYTH #12: Everyone's breast cancer is the same.

FALSE. There are many sub-types of breast cancer and they require different types of treatment.

Different women have different breast cancer types with unique disease characteristics including:

• the stage
• the size and grade of the tumor
• if there is lymph node involvement [nodal status]
• hormone receptor positive or negative
• Her2/neu positive or negative.

We also know that there are inherited gene mutations that affect breast cancer, such as BRCA 1 and BRCA2 mutations.

Breast cancer treatments have evolved over the years with the development of a range of chemotherapy drugs and therapies that target specific types of known breast cancers.  About 25 percent of women with breast cancer are found to overexpress a protein called Her2. Trastuzumab (Herceptin) is a targeted therapy for women with Her 2 positive breast cancer. In addition, about four out of five women with breast cancer have hormone receptor (HR) positive cancer, also called estrogen receptor (ER) and/or progesterone receptor (PR) positive. Hormonal therapies may keep these types of cancers from growing, increasing survival and reducing recurrence.

Triple-Negative Breast Cancer is also another subtype of breast cancer (called Triple Negative because it that lacks the receptors for estrogen and progesterone, and has normal levels of HER2). While chemotherapy seems to work best for triple negative breast cancers, it does not work as well as the targeted therapies we have for the other known types of breast cancer.

 

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No more myths. I commit to telling the people I know and love the truth about breast cancer.

 

It is important to recognize that just like any other diagnosis, knowing the specific kind of breast cancer one has is important to finding the best treatment. Learn more about patient diagnosis and options in NBCC’s online Guide to Quality Care.