Breast cancer awareness: Advancing research for prevention, detection and treatment

For many, it is something that you think about year round and for years on end, and that is the impact of breast cancer and metastatic breast cancer. I've shared how this has impacted my family, my wife dealing with metastatic breast cancer, and hoping that treatments radiation recently received makes a larger impact here. But we want to talk about those treatments. We want to talk about research that has led to current treatments, what's on the horizon. And we continue our conversations beyond the pink, beyond the ribbon with Nikki Panico, with Susan G. Komen, the state director for Minnesota and Wisconsin. Good to see you again, Nikki. Hi, good to be back. Thank you. Yeah, we've talked last week, we talked about the diagnosis. We talked about a number of topics, trying to get beyond just sort of the basics that we all know. And now it's about, there's all sorts of money raised by your foundation, by your group and others for cancer research, for breast cancer research. And it's important to know where that research money is leading. And well, let's talk about what's currently happening in terms of what research has yielded that is available right now, what the promises and the hopes are right now for women who are just undergoing treatment or maybe about to embark on it? Really great questions. And I'm honored to work for an organization that has in 40 years invested $1.1 billion to research. And it's ongoing because women are still dying. So we know we need to continue to make progress. But in the past 40 years, the progress has been tremendous. We know breast cancer is not just one disease. Researchers helped us understand that. Today, we can really look at the biology of an individual, an individual's real personal cancer, and use that information to guide treatment, such as we know there's hormone therapies or other targeted therapies, immunotherapy, which I'm currently on for certain patients, and all different newer combinations of treatment. And the goal is really to treat the cancer more effectively by finding really the right approach for each individual. Yeah. And not a one size fits all. No. Like it used to be. And that's what research has led us to this point in time or in the last decade about those individualized treatments for the cancers. I mean, the variables here include not only the type of cancer. My wife had inflammatory breast cancer, which is different from other types of tumors. But then you're looking at the proteins involved in the tumor. You're looking at the hormones, what's positive, what's negative. How much has knowing that information and genetic testing as well and knowing a history, how much has that changed the treatments that you're able to get right now? Significantly. And I'll just give my personal experience that I had 13 years between my first diagnosis and second diagnosis. And it was like a completely different world of what's available both through radiation, through, as I said, a chemotherapy or immunotherapy. So the pace at which breast cancer treatments are evolving is really um quite dramatic we need to keep funding um both at a federal level and um the department of defense was just huge and then organically through foundations like a common or breast cancer research foundation so we don't lose um the momentum and um you know really expedite continuing that because we don't we know we don't have all the cures. Yeah, well, let's talk about the progress here beyond, I guess, standard traditional chemotherapies, which many are still used because they've proven effective, right? I mean, those are standard treatments for a reason, but there are also advantages or advances beyond some of those standards. So what are the other changes or developments in chemotherapies? I know you mentioned immunotherapy, which I know there's elements of immunotherapy used in some chemotherapies it's delivered as a chemotherapy. I mean, what is the progress beyond the tried and true methods? Right, I mean, they're historically and it does still exist. Women are still getting it because as you say, we know it works with the chemotherapy where you know it's killing so many cells, that's why women are bald. It kills healthy cells in order to target the cancer cells. With the newer immunotherapies and new targeted medications, it really can focus right on the cancer cell and block growth and kill so that these healthy cells at the same time are not being affected. It's less potent. Yeah. Yeah, it's really remarkable. There was one here, the first therapy that my wife had about just about a year ago when she was diagnosed with metastatic cancer, kind of is a chemotherapy, but it used a immunotherapy type of delivery system where targeted, I think it was proteins now she's triple negative. So it wasn't, it couldn't target a hormone, but I think it used some of the protein elements of the tumor to really try to be much more of a guided missile, they called it, for the chemotherapy to be delivered right to the tumor. And initially it worked, we see obviously mutations, which is the other part of the research that causes therapies to stop working and they're researching why that happens. But that to me is very, very fascinating that you can basically use this research to create therapies which become a guided missile to these tumors. Yeah, it's really fascinating, like I say, and there could be, we see longevity, much longer lives of individuals with metastatic, which is also called stage four breast cancer, and that's when it leaves the breast and goes to other organs, and it's really remarkable, the advancements in that, but we know that there's, unfortunately, some of these therapies only have a lifespan, So, we need the next therapy and the next therapy. So when one stops working, we're on to the next one. And that is extending lives for many, many individuals, but we need to keep going with that for sure. Yeah, I know it was earlier this month, my wife had a biopsy, had to get a fresh biopsy to get a fresh look at the way the tumors evolved over the past year, how it's mutated. But they said can we take extra samples for research purposes and that seemed to us a no brainer. I mean, there are people we hear that say no, which is hard to imagine why you would say no, why you would say no to providing samples for research that could help other people years from now. So they are using these samples to do research in a lab to try to figure out in particular why triple negative cancers are so resistant to therapies. And to me, that is, there's so much research going on. So I hate to say this is the most important, but to me, that is a very important thing to figure out why certain cancers such as this become so resistant to therapies. Yes. And I just got the chills when you said that, because that is what we need for stage four, because there is no cure. I want to point out, because you made a really great point, we do, Komen works with Indiana University. We have a tissue bank for research. Also, for your viewers, Komen has a breast cancer registry called Share for Cures, where we collect, just like you would for your family tree, just a swab of the cheek. But the purpose is to collect, this is for survivors or those that have been diagnosed, I mean, currently battling. And it just collects clinical genomic data to help researchers accelerate discoveries, understand more about the aggressive or metastatic breast cancer. So that's also at Komen.org, but share for cures to be a part of this research. It's really vital. Yeah. One last thing, because I know you got to run. We got to run as well, but this is very important to talk about. For women who are newly diagnosed with cancer, breast cancer, or metastatic cancer, to understand the myriad of options available. Obviously, you're getting advice from your oncologist or your radiation oncologist. Where do you go, like with Komen, to find out what other options are out there? It's overwhelming. How do you find out about clinical trials that you could get into? That is overwhelming if you're trying to go to a bunch of different places. And I said, yes, it's 100% overwhelming. I'd say first take a breath. You don't have to learn everything or make decision all at once. Komen.org on the navigation menu, you'll see research. clinical trials um and we have a repository and a database on clinical trials but call our helpline call our patient care center because you can talk to someone and sometimes that's a little easier but we do have email and they can help give uh give you trusted um advice and specific information on on resources about that but please know you don't have to navigate this alone no please don't yeah yeah i mean it's overwhelming it is stressful it is confusing um and all the help and all the guidance you can get here is just crucial