An estimated 28,000 to 33,000 Canadians are living with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) at any given time.<\/p>\n
About 90 per cent of patients diagnosed with breast cancer are still alive five years<\/a> after diagnosis. Survivorship care has largely been designed around the needs of these patients, who will eventually complete their treatment journeys.<\/p>\n While people with MBC are living longer thanks to newer treatments, the five-year survival rate for MBC patients is significantly lower at about 23 per cent.<\/p>\n Silva says no validated survivorship care model has been designed for MBC patients \u2014 partly because the disease is often considered to be incurable.<\/p>\n Brock University Assistant Professor of Nursing Amina Silva is co-leading research to create a \u201csurvivorship resource model\u201d consisting of tools to support people living with metastatic breast cancer.<\/p><\/div>\n Patients with MBC can remain on treatment indefinitely, undergoing regular scans to monitor the cancer, switching to new treatments when it progresses and managing years of side effects.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople with metastatic cancer are on a long-term journey where they never know when or if they’re going to cross the finish line,\u201d says Silva. \u201cThose long-term treatments really take a toll on their bodies and their psychosocial and mental health, yet they report there are few resources to help them and pretty much no one knows what they\u2019re going through.\u201d<\/p>\n The team\u2019s nurse-led survivorship resource model will include a set of clinical tools \u2014 such as needs assessment guides, care planning templates, symptom management protocols and referral pathways \u2014 oncology professionals can incorporate into routine care for metastatic breast cancer patients.<\/p>\n Nurses are well placed to lead this work, Silva says, because they already follow patients closely through years of treatment.<\/p>\n Co-led by Queen\u2019s University Associate Professor Jacqueline Galica, the team will use artificial intelligence (AI) to examine tens of thousands of posts people with MBC have shared on public online forums, in both French and English, identifying patient needs in their own words.<\/p>\n Next, the team will compare what patients report online with the six areas of need identified in an earlier review<\/a> of 170 breast cancer survivorship studies.<\/p>\n These areas are physical symptoms, psychological distress, health-system navigation, financial strain, social impact and existential concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cBringing the two together, the researchers will draft the tools that make up the model and select the measures that will later be used to test its effect on symptoms, quality of life and care transitions,\u201d says Silva.<\/p>\n A panel of 30 people from across Canada \u2014 15 living with MBC and 15 oncology nurses, nurse practitioners and oncologists \u2014 will rate the draft tools for relevance and clarity. The panel includes Indigenous, rural and francophone participants.<\/p>\n![\"Brock](\"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Amina-Silva-1050x700.jpg\")
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