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home / 世界杯决赛2022

opinion: i lost my sister-in-law to the most aggressive and deadliest form of breast cancer

triple negative breast cancer is incredibly persistent and is more likely to impact women under 50 and has more limited treatment options

by dr. sandi dunn
published oct 18, 2022
read time 3 minute read
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read time 3 minute read
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during breast cancer awareness month, many of us will be thinking about the disease and the impact it has had on us and our loved ones. ryanking999 / getty images/istockphoto
october is breast cancer awareness month, and another occasion to reflect on the reason i have dedicated my life to researching treatments for this deadly illness. the first time i was hit with breast cancer in my family was in graduate school, when my grandmother was diagnosed. the scary news rocked our family, although in her case, we were lucky because of a targeted therapy that worked against her breast cancer, and she went on to live a full life to the ripe age of 96. this taught me that targeted therapies in breast cancer can save lives. then came the dire news. my sister-in-law, tammy, was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of breast cancer where there were no effective therapies and, sadly, she quickly passed away in her late 40s following that initial diagnosis. tammy’s two little girls were left to be raised without her, and i was left reeling, as so many others are when they lose a loved one to cancer — especially at such a young age.
like so many others, i became determined to find a solution, with the hope that we might someday put an end to the anguish faced by so many about whether their treatment will succeed, and their remission will last.
one particularly difficult type of cancer is triple negative breast cancer (tnbc). i’ve written about it before, and i’ll likely do so again. why? because tnbc is one of the deadliest forms of breast cancer and is incredibly persistent. it is more likely to impact women under 50, and there is growing evidence that it disproportionally affects racialized women. this form of cancer also grows and spreads quickly, is more likely than other breast cancers to return, and has more limited treatment options.
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tnbc is deserving of our attention because it is incredibly aggressive and difficult to cure. tnbc does not respond to hormonal therapy medicines or medicines that target various receptors in the body. b.c. cancer forecasts that one in eight women, or 304,885 in the vancouver region, will develop breast cancer. roughly 15 per cent of these cases, unfortunately, will be triple negative. b.c. cancer is also forecasting that between now and the end of the decade, these numbers will increase.
while there are currently very few targeted therapies available to treat tnbc, thankfully some are emerging with promise. our team at phoenix molecular designs recently completed a phase 1 clinical trial with encouraging results, so there is hope on the horizon.
more immediately the new drug sacituzumab govitecan — the first to demonstrate an improvement in the overall survival rate of those diagnosed — was approved in the u.s. in 2020 and by health canada last year, granting tnbc patients a more hopeful prognosis. we await the provinces making this drug available through the various cancer agencies.
when i started my research 10 years ago there were no targeted therapies approved for tnbc and most women with advanced stage tnbc were only given a year to live. today, there are three approved therapies, giving women the precise therapies they need to fight tnbc and ultimately come out winning. here in b.c., researchers are working to attack this disease and save lives, having developed the first uniquely-built inhibitor for tnbc that we hope will stop the disease.
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the efforts to treat and ultimately find cures for aggressive cancers highlight the importance of how we tackle cancer generally in b.c. there has been recent discussion about the need for the provincial government to prioritize cancer care in a way that embraces innovation, access to
new medications and technologies, research, and leadership to bring these things together. we must embrace this approach to achieve the greatest possible impact.
during breast cancer awareness month, many of us will be thinking about the disease and the impact it has had on us and our loved ones. it is also a time for hope and to think about the progress we have made and our collective goal of ensuring that treatments are available, and cures are found — even for the most difficult forms of cancer.
dr. sandi dunn is passionate about ending the suffering from breast cancer because of the impact it made on several generations of women in her family and many of her friends. she is the ceo and founder at phoenix molecular designs, a b.c.-based clinical stage biotech company dedicated to designing safe and effective cancer therapeutics.

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