Claim: Women with Stage 4 breast cancer survive longer if they have surgery, study shows
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Breast cancer
text: women over 80 years tend to have a poorer prognosis than post-menopausal women due to several factors. Their breasts may change with their menstrual cycles, they may be nursing infants, and they may be unaware of changes in their breasts. Therefore, younger women are usually at a more advanced stage when diagnosed. There may also be biologic factors contributing to a higher risk of disease recurrence for younger women with breast cancer. Not all people with breast cancer experience their illness in the same manner. Factors such as age can have a significant impact on the way a person copes

title: Cancer survival rates
text: survival rate close to 100% for women with stage 0 or stage I breast cancer. The 5-year relative survival rate drops to 22% for women with stage IV (metastatic) breast cancer. In cancer types with high survival rates, incidence is usually higher in the developed world, where longevity is also greater. Cancers with lower survival rates are more common in developing countries. In the United States there has been an increase in the 5-year relative survival rate between people diagnosed with cancer in 1975-1977 (48.9%) and people diagnosed with cancer in 2007-2013 (69.2%); these figures coincide with a 20% decrease

title: Breast cancer
text: two years in women 50 to 74 years old. The medications tamoxifen or raloxifene may be used in an effort to prevent breast cancer in those who are at high risk of developing it. Surgical removal of both breasts is another preventative measure in some high risk women. In those who have been diagnosed with cancer, a number of treatments may be used, including surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy and targeted therapy. Types of surgery vary from breast-conserving surgery to mastectomy. Breast reconstruction may take place at the time of surgery or at a later date. In those in

title: Bernard Fisher (scientist)
text: the lives of women suffering from this dread disease...From 1972 to 1981, the use of radical mastectomies has declined progressively from 46.8 percent to 4.5 percent. Each year from 55,000 to 60,000 women in the U.S. have breast cancer of 4 cm or less and are eligible for this breast-preserving therapy.” In 2006, Fisher was awarded the American Association for Cancer Research Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research. “Dr. Fisher's important work not only helped those who fight the disease, but has also helped prevent breast cancer in women who are at high risk,” said Margaret Foti, Ph.D., M..D.

title: Breast cancer
text: whom the cancer has spread to other parts of the body, treatments are mostly aimed at improving quality of life and comfort. Outcomes for breast cancer vary depending on the cancer type, extent of disease, and person's age. Survival rates in the developed world are high, with between 80% and 90% of those in England and the United States alive for at least 5 years. In developing countries survival rates are poorer. Worldwide, breast cancer is the leading type of cancer in women, accounting for 25% of all cases. In 2012 it resulted in 1.68 million new cases and 522,000

title: Cervical cancer
text: 92%, and the overall (all stages combined) five-year survival rate is about 72%. These statistics may be improved when applied to women newly diagnosed, bearing in mind that these outcomes may be partly based on the state of treatment five years ago when the women studied were first diagnosed. With treatment, 80-90% of women with stage I cancer and 60-75% of those with stage II cancer are alive 5 years after diagnosis. Survival rates decrease to 30-40% for women with stage III cancer and 15% or fewer of those with stage IV cancer five years after diagnosis. Recurrent cervical cancer

title: Living Beyond Breast Cancer
text: step in identifying concerns specific to women with Stage IV breast cancer. In 2013-2014, LBBC carried out the first needs assessment of women diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Approximately 10-20 percent of breast cancers are triple-negative, with a higher prevalence (30%) among African-American women. Young Hispanic women, premenopausal women, and women who test positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation, also have a higher prevalence of TNBC diagnosis. The study found that TNBC-diagnosed women had a greater interest in finding diagnosis-specific resources. It also found a greater degree of fear, anxiety, and worry among TNBC women than among those with

title: Alternative cancer treatments
text: a poorer survival time, even after controlling for type and stage of disease. In 2017, researchers at Yale School of Medicine published a paper which suggested that people who choose alternative medicine over conventional cancer treatments were more than twice as likely to die within five years of diagnosis. And specifically, in those with breast cancer, people choosing alternative medicine were 5.68 times more likely to die within five years. The reason that patients using alternative treatments die sooner may be because patients who accurately perceive that they are likely to survive do not attempt unproven remedies, and patients who

title: Metastatic breast cancer
text: months, which can be further extended by months with stereotactic surgery. Several non-randomized studies have suggested that stereotactic surgery may provide a nearly equivalent outcome, compared with surgery followed by whole brain-irradiation. Surgery tends to reduce symptoms quickly and prolong life, with an improved quality of life. Multiple metastases (up to three) may be removed surgically with a risk similar to that of a single lesion, providing similar benefits. Adjuvant radiotherapy follows surgical resection; this combined approach has been shown to prolong median survival up to 12 months, depending on the factors noted above. There is evidence that surgery may

title: Breast cancer
text: relatively high prevalence and long-term survival rates, research is biased towards breast cancer. Some subjects, such as cancer-related fatigue, have been studied little except in women with breast cancer. One result of breast cancer's high visibility is that statistical results can sometimes be misinterpreted, such as the claim that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lives—a claim that depends on the unrealistic assumption that no woman will die of any other disease before the age of 95. This obscures the reality, which is that about ten times as many women will die from heart

title: The Mission Walker
text: undergone six years of aggressive chemotherapy, radiation, and invasive surgeries in your fight against stage IV cancer. And to make things extra challenging, you're down to just one lung and a fragment of the other. When Edie Littlefield Sundby was diagnosed with metastatic cancer and given only three months to live, she vowed to fight. She sought out the best care that the medical community could offer, and she relied on the faith she had inherited from her cotton-farmer parents. But Edie also found healing through movement. Edie knew that if she was still walking, she was still alive. Though

title: Adjuvant therapy
text: in pre-menopausal women with four or more positive axillary lymph nodes." The budding theory of using additional therapies to supplement primary surgery was put into practice by Gianni Bonadonna and his colleagues from the Instituto Tumori in Italy in 1973, where they conducted a randomized trial that demonstrated more favorable survival outcomes that accompanied use of Cyclophosphamide Methotrexate Fluorouracil (CMF) after the initial mastectomy. In 1976, shortly after Bonadonna's landmark trial, Bernard Fisher at the University of Pittsburgh initiated a similar randomized trial that compared the survival of breast cancer patients treated with radiation after the initial mastectomy to those

title: Endometrial cancer
text: following appropriate treatment is 80%. Most women, over 70%, have FIGO stage I cancer, which has the best prognosis. Stage III and especially Stage IV cancers has a worse prognosis, but these are relatively rare, occurring in only 13% of cases. The median survival time for stage III-IV endometrial cancer is nine to ten months. Older age indicates a worse prognosis. In the United States, white women have a higher survival rate than black women, who tend to develop more aggressive forms of the disease by the time of their diagnosis. Tumors with high progesterone receptor expression have a good

title: BRCA mutation
text: or 40, assuming childbearing is complete. The risk of ovarian cancer is low before this age, and the negative effects of oophorectomy are less serious as the woman nears natural menopause. For comparison, women in the general population have an 84% chance of living to age 70. In a woman who has not developed breast cancer, removing the breasts may reduce her risk of ever being diagnosed with breast cancer by 90%, to a level that is approximately half the average woman's risk. Bilateral mastectomy is the removal of both breasts by a breast surgeon. The modified radical mastectomy is

title: Risk factors for breast cancer
text: of cancer recurrence and death. Furthermore, studies have shown that obese women are more likely to have large tumors, greater lymph node involvement, and poorer breast cancer prognosis with 30% higher risk of mortality. Weight gain after diagnosis has also been linked to higher rates of breast cancer recurrence or mortality although this finding is not consistent. Weight gain is often less severe with newer chemotherapy treatments but one study found a significant risk of breast cancer mortality in women who gained weight compared to those who maintained their weight. However, other cohort studies and recent clinical trials have not

title: Ductal carcinoma in situ
text: recurrence of DCIS or later onset of invasive breast cancer in comparison with breast-conserving surgery alone, without affecting mortality. The Cochrane review did not find any evidence that the radiation therapy had any long-term toxic effects. While the authors caution that longer follow-up will be required before a definitive conclusion can be reached regarding long-term toxicity, they point out that ongoing technical improvements should further restrict radiation exposure in healthy tissues. They do recommend that comprehensive information on potential side effects is given to women who receive this treatment. The addition of radiation therapy to lumpectomy appears to reduce the

title: Breast implant
text: remained constant until 10-years post-implantation, yet, it increased to 4.5 times greater at the 11-year mark, and so remained until the 19-year mark, when it increased to 6 times greater at 20-years post-implantation. Moreover, additional to the suicide-risk, women with breast implants also faced a trebled death-risk from alcoholism and the abuse of prescription and recreational drugs. Although seven studies have statistically connected a woman's breast augmentation to a greater suicide-rate, the research indicates that breast augmentation surgery does not increase the death rate; and that, in the first instance, it is the psychopathologically-inclined woman who is more likely to

title: Breast augmentation
text: that women who underwent augmentation mammoplasty, and any plastic surgery procedure, tended to be healthier and wealthier than the general population, before and after implantation; that plastic surgery patients had a lower standardized mortality ratio than did patients for other surgeries; yet faced an increased risk of death by lung cancer than other plastic surgery patients. Moreover, because only one study, the Swedish "Long-term Cancer Risk Among Swedish Women with Cosmetic Breast Implants: an Update of a Nationwide Study" (2006), controlled for tobacco smoking information, the data were insufficient to establish verifiable statistical differences between smokers and non-smokers that might

title: Marsha Hunt (actress, born 1946)
text: been the subject of a documentary, "Beating Breast Cancer" on ITV, broadcast on September 26, 2005. In late 2004, Hunt was diagnosed with breast cancer and told to have surgery to remove her right breast and her lymph nodes. Hunt postponed seeking treatment for five months, later wondering if she would have faced first stage rather than third stage cancer had she not. When she chose to have surgery, she decided to have it done in Ireland, because she felt that the Irish are more supportive and comfortable with illness than people in the U.S.; she envisaged that treatment in

title: Breast cancer
text: then demanded and received high-dose bone marrow transplants, thinking this would lead to better long-term survival. However, it proved completely ineffective, and 15–20% of women died because of the brutal treatment. The 1995 reports from the Nurses' Health Study and the 2002 conclusions of the Women's Health Initiative trial conclusively proved that hormone replacement therapy significantly increased the incidence of breast cancer. Before the 20th century, breast cancer was feared and discussed in hushed tones, as if it were shameful. As little could be safely done with primitive surgical techniques, women tended to suffer silently rather than seeking care. When