HER2 Support Group Forums - New Website for Brain Metastases

New Website Aims to Help Patients with Brain Metastases

In conjunction with the symposium, a new website (www.brainmetsbc.org) has been launched for breast cancer patients with brain metastases. The site is a Center of Excellence project, meaning cancer centers and researchers across the country who are experts in all aspects of brain metastases collaborate.

The website has been in the works for about nine months, says Musa Mayer, a breast cancer survivor, author, and independent advocate involved with the project. "This is just the beginning, really," she says, noting that the need for a resource for patients with brain metastases, especially those who have HER-2 positive breast cancer, is growing.

That's because brain metastases used to be more of a late effect in breast cancer patients, but now, with the disease being controlled better elsewhere in the body, more and more women are found to have the cancer spread to the brain. Currently, 25 to 48 percent of women with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer have brain metastases.

The website, which provides a host of resources and scientific and medical information, also aims to be a virtual support group, Mayer says. The site highlights the experiences of a variety of women living with brain metastases. "If metastatic recurrence is terrifying to women," Mayer says, "brain metastasis terrifies them most." —Karen Patterson