Bone and liver mets

Hi
I was just diagnosed with bone and liver Mets less, than a year after having Breast Cancer. It’s in my front and back ribs, lower back shoulder blades and hip. 3 spots, on the liver. I don’t see an oncologist til next week. I’m feeling so down. What is the, treatment for bone Mets and liver. Is it chemo again like with BC? I’m so scared for the prognosis.

Hi Elaine, sorry you’ve had to join us. I was diagnosed in April 2017 (12 years after primary) I have bone & lung mets. I was really surprised when I found out I’m not to have any chemo. My cancer is ER+ so back on the tamoxifen (and another hormone suppresant) which seems to have slowed the lung mets. For the bone mets I have some bone strengthening drug (Denosumab) which my partner injects once a month for me. I had a bit of radiotherapy on my arm because it was hurting which helped (although pain has come back now). My Onc seems not to bothered about the bone mets - just take lots of painkillers. There are lots of different drugs and combos for liver mets - hope someone helps you out with relevant advice. Seems that everyone is different, but I have found this forum helpful. There’s people who have been diagnosed 10 years or more ago which is really encouraging for everyone.

 

Just had my 4th scan and get results next week.

Best advice is to write down questions to ask oncologist when you meet them and take someone with you as I found my mind struggled to hear what I was being told.

Hi Elaine,
I was diagnosed with secondaries in liver & bones (spine T1 & T3) in Jan 2015. I’d been on tamoxifen for 4 1/2 years previously. I was changed to letrozole & zoladex & also bone strengtheners but there was a slight increase in liver mets so was then changed to capecitabine. I had been doing really well on that until December last year when a ct scan showed further spread in both bones & liver. I’ve now just started a clinical trial of fulvestrant (another hormone therapy) with a new trial drug…it doesn’t even have a name yet. This is only my 3rd week on the new treatment so too early to tell if it’s effective yet. My oncologist & trial docs all seem quite hopeful though, so that’s good enough for me.
Even if the trial doesn’t get the results we’re hoping for, my oncologist has told me that this is still very manageable & that he’s got a very long list of treatment options that he can use. He says as everyone is different though, it’s just finding the right combination that works for me.
Hope this helps & good luck next week. Jx