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

Posted on Wed, 2 Dec 2015

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Wed, 2 Dec 2015 Answered on

Tue, 22 Dec 2015 Last reviewed on

Question : Maybe you can help. I have a friend that has Metastatic breast cancer and it has spread to her liver and breast. I'm not sure if it spread in her liver or just one spot. She is in her late 40's. She is not being upfront with her life expectancy. I know every situation is different with this sort of cancer but with chemotherapy, what do you think her life expectancy is? She is a close friend of mine and I want her to be upfront with me but I know she is being protective and strong for me. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Answered by Dr. Pavan Kumar Gupta (2 hours later)

Brief answer....explained below
Detailed answer...
Hello,
Thanks for the query.
I have read your query and understand your concern for your friend.
Very frankly speaking if a cancer has metastasised beyond breast and into other organs,then it is called as stage 4 and in general it is said that 5 year survival rate n stage 4 is 22%. This means that only 22 out of 100 patients in stage 4 will survive beyond 5 years.
However this also depends upon the general health of a patient and also how strong mentally a person is. Recently the outlook for breast cancer patients is improving fast because of newer and better treatments.
This prognosis improves much better in patients who have earlier stages.
In stage 3 survival rate is 72% while in stage 2 it becomes 90% for five years.
These are all statistics and just tell a general guideline. Different people respond differently.
I hope it helps,however you are most welcome to revert to me for any further query.
Best of luck
Thanks

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar