There are some very good questions and answers here regarding metastatic breast cancer.
http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms...7_10/index.jsp
Here is an example:
More attention for metastatic patients?
Question from VanD: Often women with Stage IV breast cancer feel like outsiders. Attention and focus is given to women whose breast cancer is "curable." Are there any initiatives underway across the U.S. to bring more attention to women who are living with breast cancer day in and day out?
Answers:
Larry Norton:
The comment is absolutely right. A lot of the communication and resources are focused on patients with primary breast cancer rather than recurrent breast cancer. However, there are efforts to correct that. One was started here in New York by Roz Kleban who is the social worker in our center, the Evelyn Lauder Breast Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. It also involves many volunteers here in New York. They established the Metastatic Breast Cancer Network. It had two meetings so far — one at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and this year at New York University. It had lectures of relevance to the audience, who were 100% metastatic breast cancer patients, as well as networking, resources, and information.
One of the major changes in metastatic breast cancer over the years is conversion from an acute fatal disease to a chronic one that people can live with. I have people with metastatic breast cancer that I've cared for for 25 years. I expect that we're going to see more and more people with long survival with this disease, which is always a prelude towards disease cure. I've seen cures over the years I've been involved in cancer medicine. It's always a chronic disease before it becomes a curable one, and I suspect we're in that transition now.