Key Takeaways From the JADPRO Live 2023 Session on Metastatic Breast Cancer

Christine McGinn, MSN, APRN, ACNP-BC, of Lifespan, speaks about what she hopes attendees learn from her presentation on improving outcomes for women with metastatic breast cancer during JADPRO Live 2023, the Annual APSHO Meeting.

“Knowing how to manage most of the side effects from treatment is really important,” Ms. McGinn said. “We formulate a plan, and then going forward, you execute the plan. But you need to know how to treat symptoms, and you need to know how to use the proper drugs and identify symptoms quickly, so that we can treat them quickly, and then keep the patients on treatment, because ultimately these treatments are what’s going to keep patients living longer.”

Ms. McGinn spoke about how the care team evaluates patient responses to treatment and how to proceed if a patient seems to need a different therapeutic regimen.

“We start with one treatment regimen, and we stay the course as long as it’s working without too many side effects… We use scans and imaging to see how the cancers are responding, and if the cancer stops responding to treatment or the side effects are too toxic, then we talk about switching to the next regimen,” Ms. McGinn said.

Ms. McGinn also highlighted how she has seen treatments and outcomes change for patients with metastatic breast cancer.

“For me, the beautiful take-home thing is that there’s a lot of hope for these patients,” Ms. McGinn said. “The field is evolving quickly with several new drugs developing over the past few years and women are living longer. For that we’re really grateful.”