Beth Ciavaglia talks about how a clinical trial changed the course of her cancer treatment.

I’m a six-year breast cancer survivor, and research changed my life because it allowed me to not have to endure ongoing treatments that brought a lot of negative side effects.

After I was done active treatment — which involved chemotherapy, radiation and surgery —there’s another intervention that’s the standard of care for breast cancer patients. 

It’s an infusion to help decrease the chance of your breast cancer coming back as metastatic. You get it seven times over three-and-a-half years.

With it comes some short-term side effects, and then possibly more serious long-term side effects like death of your jaw bone or spontaneous fractures elsewhere in your body.

But luckily for me, my oncologist was running a study where they were looking at whether those seven treatments were really necessary. Could we get away with less and still have the same outcome?

The idea of avoiding a lot of these side effects and having to go to the cancer center less often was very, very appealing to me. So I jumped in and agreed to participate in the study.

The one treatment that I did have was very unpleasant. So right off the top, I was thankful to be participating.

And I think the best news around it was the study has just completed and has shown that the one-time intervention is as effective as the seven-time intervention.

I am also happy to report that I remain cancer free, and I’m very thankful to the research that helps me to be so today.

Beth Ciavaglia is a physiotherapist turned not-for-profit Executive Director. Her experience at the front line as a healthcare worker, and then as a patient gives her a unique perspective that made her shift her own personal paradigm on what quality of life really means.