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Advanced or metastatic breast cancer is when the breast cancer cells spread from the breast to other parts of the body. This leads to the development of cancer in other areas, such as the liver, bone, lungs or brain.
There is no known cure for advanced breast cancer so facing a diagnosis can be scary. You may be thinking “how long do I have?”, “why me?”, and “it’s not fair”.
You will not know exactly what the future holds, but for many women the disease can be well controlled and they live full, happy and productive lives.
Breast cancer does not discriminate, and with over 3,000 New Zealanders diagnosed each year, many of you will not necessarily fit the ‘typical profile’ of an older female breast cancer patient. If you are young, Māori, Pasifika, male, or LGBTQI+, some of your support needs may differ from the mainstream.
These pages give information and advice to help you.
After handling your breast cancer diagnosis and getting through immediate surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy, you’ll be keen to get on with your ‘new normal’ ‘post-breast cancer’ life. Most women report that experiencing breast cancer changes their outlook on life.
You may still be under treatment for some time to come. If your cancer was hormone receptor positive, your hormone therapy may continue for several years. If your diagnosis was advanced breast cancer, your treatments will continue indefinitely. Even if you no longer need active treatment, the emotional and physical impacts of your breast cancer may continue to affect you.
In 2004, twelve of this country’s breast cancer-related groups met for the first time to discuss ways to improve breast cancer survival rates in New Zealand.
BCAC was formed following this historic meeting with the mandate to work to provide a unified evidence-based voice to ensure that world-class detection, treatment and care is accessible to all women with breast cancer in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
BreastScreen Aotearoa is the free national breast screening programme for women aged between 45 and 69.
You can have a free screening mammogram every two years through BreastScreen Aotearoa if you meet the following requirements:
On this page you can read about the experiences of other women who have had breast cancer. Feel free to submit your own story to provide hope and inspiration for other women.
A diagnosis of breast cancer is a life-changing moment for more than 3000 New Zealand women every year.
If you have just been diagnosed, you will be on an emotional roller coaster and you're probably feeling quite overwhelmed.
We hope we can help - by helping you to understand breast cancer and providing you with information that will assist you to make the best decisions about your treatment and care. Below you'll find some tips on coping with a new diagnosis.
Unfortunately, side effects are part-and-parcel of any treatment for breast cancer. Be sure to tell your medical team about any side-effects you experience because there are often steps that can be taken to dramatically reduce the impact of these.
Below are some of the more common side-effects associated with breast cancer surgery and some tips on how to deal with them.
If you’ve had a mastectomy you will probably have spent one to three days in hospital. If you have had breast reconstruction or complications, your hospital stay is likely to be longer.
Immediately after surgery:
Waking up from a general anaesthetic, you are likely to feel groggy and possibly confused, but this soon wears off.
You will usually have some numbness in the chest, armpit or upper arm area. This may be the result of reactive swelling in the surrounding tissue putting pressure on the nerves or nerve damage during surgery. You may also feel some odd sensations in these areas – burning, tingling, itching etc. Tell your doctor about any side effects of surgery.
The Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition (BCAC) does not support the use of thermography as a breast cancer screening or diagnostic tool as we believe there is insufficient evidence of its effectiveness. We continue to recommend screening and diagnostic mammograms for the early detection and treatment of breast cancer in New Zealand.
The following detailed information on thermography was presented in the recent position statement jointly written by New Zealand’s National Screening Unit (NSU), the Cancer Society of New Zealand and the Breast Cancer Foundation New Zealand, entitled ‘The use of thermography as a breast cancer screening or diagnostic tool’.
