I'm wondering how your team feels about oligometastatic disease, or treating some metastatic lesions with a local procedure, such as surgery, radiation, and interventional radiology. I advocate for local procedures in combination with systemic therapy, where appropriate. Perhaps you could bring it up to them.
Far too many oncologists argue that since metastatic disease is systemic, a local procedure won't help in keeping the cancer away. And this appears to be particularly the case at larger institutions and when a doctor is famous. They also say that there's no evidenced based medicine to show that local procedures help. Only anecdotal evidence. Or, for heavily pretreated patients, they might finally say, Let's cut it out, radiate it, or ablate it. In sort of a last ditch effort. However, all of that may change based on the results of clinical trials, and some medical oncologists are speaking more about local procedures at metastatic conferences.
Clinical trial of stereotatic body radio surgery for advanced bc survivors:
http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/sh...=chmura&rank=1
This is an area of oncology that makes me feel TREMENDOUSLY SAD: that perhaps local procedures/systemic therapy can help some patients, but doctors refuse to consider them. Only some of us are lucky enough to have sustained NED through only chemotherapy and targeted treatments, such that we can then drop the chemo. And I wasn't one of them, but I've never taken chemo since my bc advanced to stage 4. So, I really don't know what would have happened.
Also, WE are particularly lucky, because there are THREE targeted treatments for us, and more if we're hormone positive. I CRY for women who have mTNBC. They have no targeted therapies and can rely on only chemotherapy. Some of my good friends have metastatic triple negative disease. I PRAY everyday for the discovery of an effective, targeted treatment for them.
I now know several women who have had lung mets removed and are doing very well. A survivor on this website did the same for skin mets. She was being treated with Herceptin, Tykerb, and Xeloda at Sloan-Kettering, and they refused to consider surgery to remove them. The mets were on her breast where she had a lumpectomy. Every time she stopped taking Xeloda, they recurred. After three times, she switched to my oncologist who agreed to remove them surgically, followed by radiation to the area. In March, she passed her one year NED mark, and she stopped taking Xeloda about three months after the surgery.
Local treatments aren't for everybody, but they could perhaps help some patients.
To quote our angel Brenda, who said many times on this website: I'D RATHER BE ANECDOTALLY ALIVE THAN STATISTICALLY DEAD. Her fiancé even mentioned this quote at her funeral service of which a video was posted online. Brenda, I couldn't agree more.
After all, we're fighting for our lives.