The progress made in detecting and treating breast cancers is a testament to the hard work of everyone who has touched the disease over the past decades. In fact, a breast cancer diagnosis is no longer a death sentence. Women and men living with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) now have more treatment options than before, another testament to all the hard work done over the years.
There are still some breast cancers we don’t fully understand. They tend to be more aggressive and harder to treat. MBC is the most advanced stage of breast cancer. It has spread beyond the breast and surrounding lymph nodes into other parts of the body, commonly the bones, brain, liver and lungs.
MBC is hard to treat, in part, because there are fewer treatment options for it than early-stage breast cancers. In comparison, early- and locally advanced-stage breast cancers are confined to the breasts and surrounding lymph nodes. The approval of more treatments for MBC give doctors more options to discuss with patients when making treatment decisions.
Biosimilars are just one example of an additional option doctors may have for their patients. Biosimilars are drugs that are biologically similar to a brand name drug already available for patients with certain types of disease. The goal of the biosimilar drug is to provide patients with an outcome that is not meaningfully different from the brand name drug.
Most women and men living with MBC do not take just one drug to treat their breast cancer. Typically, many different types of treatment are needed, and at different times, so having more options to treat MBC is important.
Equally important is the assurance patients have if they are given a biosimilar as part of their treatment. They can be confident the biosimilar was rigorously tested and determined to be safe to use in people.
