On Our Own Terms: A Conversation About Medical Aid in Dying, Dignity, and the Choices We're Afraid to Make
On August 5th, 2025, New York State became one of only a handful of states in the country where medical aid in dying is now legal.
For our community — people living with metastatic breast cancer — this is not an abstract policy debate. It's a deeply personal question about how we want to live, and how we want to die.
Developing Story: Triple Negative MBC - Hard Truths, Real Hope with Dr Sarah Premji
Triple negative metastatic breast cancer has long been considered the hardest subtype to treat. That is changing and faster than most patients realize. Dr. Sarah Premji joins Victoria Goldberg to break down two landmark FDA approvals, the science behind antibody-drug conjugates, and what's coming next in the pipeline
Symptoms Spotlight: Bloood Clots with Abigail Johnston and Melanie Sisk
Blood clots are one of the most serious risks facing people with metastatic breast cancer, yet many patients don't learn about them until after a diagnosis has already happened. In this Symptom Spotlight, a registered nurse and an MBC patient sit down to talk through what you need to know, from understanding your personal risk factors to recognizing symptoms and knowing when to ask for help.
Developing Story: Your Cancer's DNA and the Trial Using It to Cure You with Dr. Pedram Razavi
What does it take to cure metastatic breast cancer? According to Dr. Pedram Razavi, it takes a blood test sensitive enough to find one cancer cell in a million, the courage to stop treatment when that signal disappears, and a trial designed to prove the paradigm wrong.
The HERizon-Breast Trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering is doing exactly that — and it's enrolling now.
This is one of the most science-rich episodes of Live from Stage 4 to date. We break down every term, every concept, and every implication in plain language so you don't need a medical degree to understand why this matters.
Symptoms Spotlight: Vaginal Dryness with Abigail Johnston and Melanie Sisk
"Nobody tells you about this part."
Vaginal dryness is one of the most common side effects of metastatic breast cancer treatment and one of the least talked about. In this episode, Abigail Johnston and Melanie speak candidly about what it is really like to navigate painful intimacy, shifting hormones, and the search for solutions while living with MBC
Developing Story: The Trial That Dares to Say Cure with Dr. Lior Braunstein
Dr. Lior Braunstein, radiation oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering, joins Victoria Goldberg and Ellen Landsberger to discuss the ARCHER trial — a groundbreaking study combining surgery and ablative radiation with standard HER2-targeted therapy in patients with oligometastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. The goal: eradicate every last cancer cell before resistance can emerge.
Developing Story: CureWise Goes Live - The AI Platform Built by Cancer Patients, for Cancer Patients
You have ten minutes with your oncologist. Ten minutes to ask the right questions, understand what's happening inside your body, and make decisions that could change everything. For most cancer patients, that's not enough time — and nobody taught you how to prepare.
CureWise was built to change that. On June 20th, the AI platform created by cancer patients Steve Brown and Lisa Booth officially launched. On this episode of Live From Stage 4, we sit down with Steve, Lisa, and real beta users Lynda and Todd Weatherby to find out what it actually does, how it works, and why it matters.
Developing Story: Beyond Camizestrant — The Evolving Landscape of ER+/HER2- MBC with Dr. Sarah Premji
The oral SERD era has arrived, and the treatment landscape for HR+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer is changing fast. Hosts Victoria Goldberg and Abigail Johnston sit down with Dr. Sarah Premji of Sarah Cannon to map out what has shifted beyond SERENA-6, from new FDA approvals and emerging mechanisms to real-world sequencing decisions and the latest trial data. If you are trying to make sense of a rapidly evolving algorithm, this episode is for you.
Symptoms Spotlight: Neutropenia with Abigail Johnston and Melanie Sisk
If you've ever gotten a blood draw before chemo and heard your nurse mention your ANC, this episode is for you. Neutropenia, a low white blood cell count, is one of the most common side effects of cancer treatment, and understanding it can make a real difference in how you advocate for yourself. Dr. Jill Tirabassi joins hosts Abigail Johnston and Melanie Sisk to break it all down, from what your numbers mean to what to do when they drop too low, and all three bring their own patient experiences to the table.
Developing Story: The Camizestrant Vote, Doctors Weigh In with Dr. Sarah Sammons & Dr. Neil Vasan
When the ODAC voted 6–3 against the camizestrant strategy, the headlines told you what happened — this episode tells you why. We're back for round two with Dr. Sarah Sammons, newly appointed Co-Leader of Breast Oncology at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Dr. Neil Vasan, Acting Chair of the ODAC and Director of Translational Research in Breast Cancer at NYU Langone Health, who sat in that room and cast one of the three yes votes. Alongside patient advocates Janice Cowden and Abigail Johnston, we break down the four FDA critiques that drove the vote, what the quality of life data showed and why regulators couldn't act on it, and what the FDA's new August 14th review deadline means for patients. Plus: why this science isn't going anywhere, and what ctDNA-guided treatment could look like in the very near future.
Symptom Spotlight: Melanie's Updates on Sleep Apnea and Constipation
Sometimes the symptoms you least expect turn out to be the most important ones to pay attention to. In this Symptom Spotlight update, Melanie shares two surprising diagnoses she received after recording our earlier episodes — obstructive sleep apnea and chronic constipation with diarrhea breakthrough — and how both were hiding in plain sight beneath what she assumed were normal cancer treatment side effects. If you're a metastatic cancer patient who's been brushing off fatigue, poor sleep, or digestive issues as "just part of treatment," this episode is for you.
Developing Story: The Camizestrant Vote — When Your Blood Test Knows Before Your Scan Does
Six MBC patient advocates join host Victoria Goldberg to break down the FDA advisory committee's vote on camizestrant and the SERENA-6 trial. The panel unpacks what the vote really means, whether the science of molecular progression is ready for clinical practice, and why patient advocates need a seat at the table before trials are designed.
Front Row Seat: Dr. Fatima Cardoso on Aiming Higher - Hope and the Road to a Cure
For decades, metastatic breast cancer meant one thing: managing the disease. But a new global report — and a bold new charter — say it's time to aim higher. Host Victoria Goldberg sits down with Dr. Fátima Cardoso of the ABC Global Alliance to examine 10 years of hard-won progress, confront the inequalities that have grown worse, and explore why, for the first time, the word cure is entering the conversation.
Front Row Seat: Can We Talk about the Cure? A Conversation with Dr. Eric Winer
For decades, stage IV meant managing the disease — not beating it. That story is beginning to change.
In this episode of Live from Stage IV, Victoria Goldberg sits down with Dr. Eric Winer — oncologist, director of the Yale Cancer Center, and former president of ASCO — to ask a question that once felt impossible: Can we cure metastatic breast cancer?
Dr. Winer walks through the landmark trials reshaping HER2-positive treatment, introduces the concept of "curative hope," and gets into what's hardest about ER-positive and triple-negative disease, cancer dormancy, the science of exercise, and bold new trial designs like SAFFO and HORIZON that are rewriting the playbook.
Thriving Together 2026: LBBC's MBC Conference Through Our Eyes
"You walk into a room full of people living with metastatic breast cancer and you just... break down. Not because it's sad — though it is — but because for the first time, you're not alone in it."
Twenty years in, LBBC's Thriving Together Conference is still doing what no other event in the MBC space does: bringing patients together not just to learn, but to find each other. In this episode, four MBC patients who attended the 2026 conference share what moved them, what the science is saying, and why they'll keep coming back.
Symptoms Spotlight: Hair Loss with Abigail Johnston and Melanie Sisk
"Hair may seem like a small thing compared to staying alive. But hair is such an integral part of who we are — of how we see ourselves, and how the world sees us. It's important not to ignore the effect that losing our hair may have on our wellbeing." — Abigail Johnston
Front Row Seat: The Enigma of the Blood-Brain Barrier & More with Dr. Nancy Lin
Dr. Nancy Lin of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute joins us to talk about one of the most complex challenges in metastatic breast cancer: when it spreads to the brain. She walks us through the newest treatments, the latest trial data, and the biology of the blood-brain barrier — why it blocks most drugs, and how researchers are finally learning to work around it.
Stage 4 Living: Palliative Care is Not Hospice with Dr. Mary Busowski
Palliative care is not hospice — and that one misconception is keeping cancer patients from getting support they desperately need. Dr. Mary Busowski, palliative care physician at Orlando Health, joins our hosts Abigail Johnston and Amy Russell-Parliman o set the record straight and make the case for getting palliative care involved from day one.
S**t We Deal With Shorts: Time Burden with Dr. Jill Tirabassi
"You hear things like, 'living with cancer is a full-time job.' And actually this was an interesting study where we looked to see what truly is the time burden for people living with either metastatic breast or ovarian cancer... The time spent waiting and traveling for care often exceeded the amount of time receiving care. Most days, participants had a home cancer-related task to do—80% of days. The median was about 209 minutes per week doing cancer related tasks at home."
— Dr. Jill Tirabassi explores new research quantifying the invisible labor of living with metastatic cancer
Front Row Seat: We'll Never Cure Cancer Without AI, Say Steve Brown & Lisa Booth
When Steve Brown's doctors missed his rare blood cancer for months, he turned to AI for answers. The system he built spotted the warning signs immediately—the same lab results his physicians had dismissed.
Now, as CEO of CureWise, Steve and patient advocate Lisa Booth are pioneering a new approach to cancer care: using AI agents trained as specialist doctors to help patients navigate treatment options, find clinical trials, and advocate effectively with their oncologists.
"There's a gap between what's possible and what most people are getting," Steve explains. "Cancer isn't just one disease. Everybody has their own unique version of it."
Lisa, an 11-year metastatic breast cancer survivor, adds: "My oncologist sees 600 patients. CureWise empowers me to show up to that seven-minute appointment with the right questions already researched and the clinical trials already identified."
This conversation explores how AI is transforming patient empowerment—and why knowledge might just save your life.