confined to the breast or has only spread to nearby tissue,” Morgan says.
“But in some women, the cancer will grow and spread to other parts of the body or come back in a different part of the body several years after the end of their initial treatment,” she notes. “At this point, the cancer becomes much harder to treat and the risk of dying is higher. However, we don’t really know how many people develop metastatic breast cancer because cancer registries have not been routinely collecting this data.”
The analysis also suggested that rates of metastasis are lower in patients with more recent initial diagnoses than in those first diagnosed in the 1970s and 1980s.
However, some of the decrease may be due to the time lag between a first diagnosis of breast cancer and detection of metastases, according to the researchers.
This type of data is “vital” in understanding rates of advanced breast cancer worldwide, says Shani Paluch-Shimon, a member of the conference’s scientific committee and director of the Breast Unit at Hadassah University Hospital, in Israel.
Among other things, it will “help us identify at-risk groups across different populations and demonstrate how disease course is changing with contemporary treatments,” says Paluch-Shimon.
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Can advanced-stage breast cancer be avoided?
Unfortunately, researchers are still unclear on what causes breast cancer to spread and how to prevent it. However, there are a few things you can do to decrease the chance of your breast cancer spreading:
- Learn your history: Knowing your family history is an important step to knowing your risk factors and catching the cancer early before it has a chance to spread.
- Know your body: Knowing your body/breasts will allow you to spot any alarming changes and catch cancer early. You should also pay close attention to any menstrual changes that are abnormal to your personal and biological history.
- Take care of yourself: Your lifestyle also plays a role in your risk. Staying physically active and nutritious and limiting smoking and drinking is key.