What Is The Life Expectancy Of A Person With Metastatic Breast Cancer?

Posted on Wed, 23 Dec 2015

Question: I have a friend that was diagnosed with breast cancer beginning of the year. She went for her checkup and 6 months later she has Metastatic breast cancer and it has spread to her liver and breast. I'm not sure if cancer in her liver is on one spot or spread. Is that bad that it spread within a 6 month time period? She is in her late 40's. I know every situation is different with this sort of cancer but with chemotherapy, what do you think her life expectancy is? Also, she found this out after her 3 month check up. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Answered by Dr. Hardik Sanghvi (25 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Prognosis is poor. Life expectancy is not good.

Detailed Answer:
Hi,
I have gone through your question. I can understand your concern. She has breast cancer with liver metastasis. It becomes stage 4 cancer irrespective of size and grade. Distant metastasis is poor prognostic factor.

Chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormonal therapy are the treatment options available. But despite of all treatment prognosis remains poor and life expectancy is not good.

It is difficult to predict life expectancy and survival rate depends on many factors like age, overall general health, receptor status, etc. That being said median survival rate with liver metastasis is below 14 month. It can be increased by chemotherapy and receptor therapy. But overall only about 5% breast cancer at this stage survive for 5 years.

Hope I have answered your question, if you have doubt then I will be happy to answer. Thanks for using health care magic. Wish you a very good health.

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Prasad