Can chemotherapy cure advanced breast cancer?

Sep 23, 2025 Source: Cainiu Health

Dr. Lv Dapeng

Introduction

In general, chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer usually cannot achieve a complete cure, but it can effectively control tumor progression, relieve symptoms, prolong patient survival, and improve quality of life. It is one of the core approaches in the comprehensive treatment of advanced breast cancer. Although chemotherapy cannot cure advanced breast cancer, it plays a significant role in improving patient outcomes. Patients should undergo treatment under the guidance of a physician.

In general, chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer usually cannot achieve a complete cure. However, it effectively controls tumor progression, alleviates symptoms, prolongs survival, and improves quality of life, making it one of the core components in the comprehensive treatment of advanced breast cancer. The detailed analysis is as follows:

From the nature of the disease, advanced breast cancer means that the tumor has spread beyond the breast and regional lymph nodes to distant sites such as bones, lungs, or liver. At this stage, cancer cells have widely disseminated throughout the body, and current medical treatments are unable to completely eliminate all malignant cells, making a cure difficult.

Regarding the role of chemotherapy, its primary value lies in systemic tumor control: first, by killing cancer cells throughout the body, reducing the size of metastatic lesions and slowing tumor growth, thereby relieving metastasis-related symptoms such as pain and shortness of breath; second, by extending the patient's survival time with controlled disease. Clinical data show that standardized chemotherapy can prolong survival in some patients with advanced breast cancer by 1–3 years or even longer; third, by creating opportunities for subsequent therapies—for example, if the tumor shrinks after chemotherapy, patients who were previously ineligible for surgery may become candidates for local treatments, or better suited for targeted therapy or immunotherapy.

Although chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer cannot cure the disease, it plays a significant role in improving patient outcomes. Patients should work with their physicians to develop an individualized, comprehensive treatment plan based on tumor molecular subtypes and physical tolerance, aiming to achieve optimal therapeutic results and enhance quality of life.

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