OPINION: How likely is my breast cancer to recur and spread?
The study found that, overall, one in ten women's breast cancer had spread to other parts of the body within five years of diagnosis. However the risk was much lower if the initial breast cancer was localised to the breast. Image: Eraxion/iStockphoto Over 13,500 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia each year. After completing initial treatment, the immediate question for many, if not most, is – what are the chances my cancer will return? A major source of anxiety is the fear the cancer will not only return, but spread to other areas of the body. Such cancer spread is known as advanced or “metastatic” breast cancer. Doctors often use information from breast cancer clinical trials when trying to answer this question. But trials, although very valuable, often select out women with certain characteristics and sometimes exclude older women, so it’s difficult to know how closely their results represent “real world” experiences. We...