Treatment options are confusing???

inGodwetrust

My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer 10-26-2010. As the rest of you are aware this is very scary to say the least.

She is being treated at MD Anderson Hospital in Houston, Texas. MDA seems to be very organized, which gives us some comfort. My mother-in-law just went through breast cancer surgery four days prior to my wife being diagnosed and her breast cancer is in situ carcinoma.

My wife had the the gene test performed which came back negative for mutated genes.  

Our doctor is strongly recommending the lumpectomy with radiation treatment, plus hormone therapy for 5 years.

We can skip the radiation therapy if she decides to undergo a mastectomy. We spoke with a nurse (friend) who underwent the exact treatment that was strongly suggested to my wife and she was not happy with the tamoxifen, nor the radiation therapy. She elected to go back to have the bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. The scary part of that is since she had the radiation therapy they had to remove back muscle in order to perform the reconstruction. Now she cannot swim laps anymore (Limited motion).      

We are confused on which direction to go. We want to follow our doctor since he knows much more about this than we do. He states the lumpectomy with radiation is just as successful as the bi-lateral mastectomy and that the side effects of radiation with hormone therapy are the lesser of two evils. I tend to agree with him, but it is little comfort. It all seems so drastic no matter which option you choose.

Can anyone shed some light on this subject that will help us... God Bless...    

suz3

Hi,

Your wife and I are having the same feelings.  I have to make my decision today and I still don't know.  It all seems the cart before the horse not having the lymph nodes figured out and all.  I guess I'll have to pray on this.  Good luck.

Hugs to all Suz3 

kira1234

Good for you being there for you wife. I understand it is a scary time right now, but it seems it was cought early. As far as which way to go that has to be her decision. I will tell you I went with a lumpectomy, and so far am glad I did. I had radiation after the lumpectomy. For me radiation was not to bad.

When your wife has her surgery you will want to have the Oncotype dx test done to determine if she needs chemo or not. As far as the hormone treatment she will still need that even if she has the mastectomy. The hormone treatment is because her tumor is ER/PR+ The other thing that decides chemo or not is if the path report shows the tumor is HER+ and if her SNB is negative or positive for cancer.