mTNBC Unicorns: Living In Contradiction
Research for triple negative breast cancer is growing, but current treatments still continue to fail the vast majority of people living with triple negative MBC. Data from the National Cancer Institute gives a five-year relative survival of only 12.8% of women diagnosed with triple negative MBC. Those women have what's called an exceptional response to treatment; more simply, we call them “unicorns” – beings that can bring wonder & hope. The stories of well-known triple negative MBC unicorns such as Karen Peterson and Barbara Bigelow bring inspiration. Today, we share the stories of two additional women: Dr. Toni Willis and Colleen Broughton have both lived for 8 years with TN metastatic breast cancer. Being an exceptional responder is what everyone with MBC hopes for – we wanted to give a chance for Colleen and Toni to share the miraculous, the miserable, and the mundane of surviving far longer than they expected to.
Music Credit:
The Things That Keep Us Here - Scott Buckley
Resources
A Primer on mTNBC (Living Beyond Breast Cancer)
Living in Contradiction: The dialectic of pain (Psychology Today)
The value of second opinions for cancer (Mayo Clinic)
Find an NCI-designated cancer center (National Cancer Institutes)
Health Equity: Breaking Barriers in mTNBC (WebMD series)
Karen’s Club, an organization that helps cancer patients of color learn how to navigate their cancer care & clinical trials, run by Karen Peterson, a mTNBC exceptional responder
When we tri(al): the value of clinical trials for women of color (TOUCH)
Recent academic article on Emerging Treatment Strategies for metastatic triple negative breast cancer (2022)
Stories from other mTNBC unicorns
Karen Peterson
Karen Peterson Survived Breast Cancer by Doing her own Research (Essence magazine)
Patient Facing Grim Prognosis finds her way to Perlmutter Cancer Center and makes medical history (NYU Langone Health)
Karen Peterson’s Battle with Breast Cancer (People magazine)
Don’t Count Yourself Out: Karen Peterson’s Immunotherapy Story (Cancer Research Institute)
A conversation with Cancer Research Institute ImmunoAdvocate Karen Peterson (video)
on the value of clinical trials (Pzifer)
Barbara Bigelow
Barbara Bigelow discusses her Journey with Triple Negative Breast Cancer (CancerNetwork)
Barbara Bigelow: Enjoying Life because of Cancer Research (American Association of Cancer Research)
Barbara Bigelow: One Tough Unicorn (Our MBC Life blog)
The Cancer Chronicles (Barbara’s blog)
Janice Cowden
Newly Diagnosed with Cancer: You are not a Statistic (Cure Magazine)
Searching for Unicorns: Exceptional Survivors & Responders (Our MBC Life podcast)
Janice Cowden: Plan to Live (After Breast Cancer Diagnosis)
Janice Cowden: Visioning a New Future for Clinical Trials (MBC Alliance)