Posted on behalf of new user Skianne
why have I not seen on web or other forams of people with grade 4 metastes whoms treatment is solely letrozole are we the condemmed to our fate alone?
Hi Skianne
Welcome to the club no one wanted to join – I hope you’ll find lots of support, information & advice here from people living with secondary BC. Some of us are on hormonal treatment only, like you, and others are having short-term or longer-term chemotherapy to deal with their secondaries. And most of us with secondaries in our bones also have an intra-venous or tablet bone-strengthening treatment. A few, like me, are on all three (I have liver and bone mets), but it’s unusual to have both a hormonal treatment and a chemotherapy at the same time. Our oncologists have a range of treatment options to offer us, and they usually don’t like to “use them all up” at once. So . . . our treatment options depend on a lot of factors: where our secondaries are located, whether we are oestrogen-/HER2-/etc. receptive, how we’ve responded to particular treatments in the past, how badly the side effects impact on our quality of life, our general health and any complications not to do with BC, what our hospitals/PCTs will pay for – lots of variables! I’m sure you’ll hear soon from others on Letrozole, and I wish you good luck that this works well for you.
Regards, Marilyn x
Hi there!
I am on letrozole(Femera)and am waiting to see if it ‘does the trick’.My onc is waiting to see if I respond. I have been on it 10 weeks, and I am told that it is not unusual to wait up to 3 months for an effect to take place as this takes a while to build up. I was dx with primary bc and mets in my bones at the same time this May. I have IV zometa for the bones. The SE for me are minimal so fingers crossed that the magic pill works. The medical team will have weighed up the benefits of different treatments, and quality of life rates pretty highly. You do not mention where your mets are. There are lots of ladies on this site and I hope you will find the info and support you can get valuable. I felt a bit ‘abandoned’ at first, but am slowly getting my head around the new normal.
Hi Skianne
I’ve been on letrazole for my mets for 10 months now and its working very well- shrinking liver tumours and keeping all the others at bay. I did have chemo last year as the liver tumours needed an intensive attack but my understanding is that hormone treatments are just as effective as chemo (if you respond) but take longer to give results. If you are not being offered chemo at the moment ask your onc why. It may be that s/he is keeping it for later.
Louise
Hi Louise
I’m due to start letrazole (Femara) soon for bone mets - I haven’t had a chance yet to discuss it with my onc, so maybe you can help with a query. I am 6/8 oe+ and wondered what this means for the success of hormone therapy - do you have to be 100%+ for it to hold the cancer stable, and will there inevitably be progression of you are not 100%? Thanks
finty
I reckon its if you are hormone positive then it should work. They wouldn’t hang about giving you an expensive drug that wouldn’t be appropriate. As I understand it there are strict protocols for what they give and when.
x sarah