Why a Center of Excellence for breast cancer brain metastases?
Treatment for brain metastases of breast cancer is an unmet medical need. While advances have been made in the treatment of early breast cancer, and there have been modest steps forward in controlling distant metastases in organs other than the brain, almost no progress has been made in the treatment, prevention, or eradication of metastases to the brain. Surgery and radiation, the mainstays of treatment, have remained unchanged for decades. The blood-brain barrier, meant to keep toxins, infections and viruses from getting into the brain, also serves as a barrier to many breast cancer therapies such as chemotherapy and Herceptin, preventing them from getting into the brain. Once in the brain, drugs also have difficulty penetrating a second barrier around the metastases called the blood-tumor barrier. The urgency of this problem is obvious. Women whose lives are being extended by chemotherapy and targeted therapies such as Herceptin are now more likely to die of brain metastases. Resear
