#saveDebbie or not?

So the #saveDebbie campaign is still going on and strong.

Cancer has hit clost to home for a lot of us. We are related to or know someone who has had to deal with it. Pata pata e, if you own an iPhone, yeah Steve Jobs died from cancer.

Breast cancer  is the third leading cause of cancer related deaths and the leading cause of cancer related deaths in women. 

Cancer is pretty much your normal breast cells going gaga. 

There are two major types of cancer. 

1. Ductal carcinoma starts in the tubes (ducts) that move milk from the breast to the nipple. Most breast cancers are of this type.

2. Lobular carcinoma starts in the parts of the breast, called lobules, that produce milk.

It's staged in four stages. I couldn't find a neat little table, so I'll do my best to summarize

Stage 1: the cancer is still confined to the primary site, eg breast

Stage II: the tumor has spread to lymph nodes

Stage III: the tumor has spread to tissues close by eg rib cage, Skin, chest wall, muscles

StageIV: the cancer has spread to distant tissues eg liver, Lungs, Brain etc.

http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/About-Breast-Cancer/Stages.aspx

Anyways, the point of this post is what's the prognosis for Debbie? Survival rates are based on data from a whole bunch of people that had breast cancer, and seeing how many of them survive past a certain number of years.

Stage	5-year Survival Rate
0	93%
I	88%
IIA	81%
IIB	74%
IIIA	67%
IIIB	41%*
IIIC	49%*
IV	15%

*These numbers are correct as written (stage IIIB shows worse survival than stage IIIC)

What's the treatment strategy?

The treatment strategy is based on the stage of the cancer. 

I took the liberty of asking a friend (surgeon) if she would operate on a patient with stage IV breast cancer. Her response? 

The operation would not affect survival, it would just be palliative. Meaning its not a curative operation. If the patient had a huge fun gating mass, we'd take it out so that the patient has a better quality of life.

So how would you manage stage IV breast cancer? Mostly chemo and hormonal therapy. Even then, this is not meant to be curative. It just buys the patient a little more time till the inevitable. 

Am I saying we should not #savedebbie? At all! She still has a 15% chance at survival. Not much, but it's something. And even if she's gonna go out, let her go out fighting.