my aunt

cammycramblit

my aunt was just diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer.  it is in the lymph nodes. what are her chances

riley702

Triple negative is not an automatic death sentence, even with positive nodes. The good thing is that TNBC usually responds quite well to chemo. It's usually more aggressive and that makes it suck up the chemo in the mistaken belief that it is something to feed on. Some women have a complete pathological response to chemo, which means the tumor completely disappears or is only dead tissue at the end of chemo (this refers to women taking the chemo before surgery, or neo-adjuvant chemo. Some doctors prefer to operate first and follow up with chemo and some do it the other way around.)

She needs to ask the oncologist what therapy they recommend. There are a lot of clinical trials out there that will give you more or more aggressive chemo to knock this thing back. Radiation is also common. TNs don't have tumors that feed on hormones, so we aren't (usually) candidates for post-treatment anti-hormonals like Tamoxifen, aromatase inhibitors or Herceptin. That means we likely only have one chance to tackle this thing with chemo, radiation and surgery, and a lot of us throw everything at it that we can. This isn't a time to be timid about treatment.

I hope she chooses to fight this thing head-on and I hope she has many years left to do so. If she chooses to post here, we'll be here to support her. Please keep us updated.

adgirl5

I'm one that had neoadjuvant therapy.. or chemo before treatment- and achieved a pathological complete response. (pCR). 

I'm also one who NEEDS to throw everything at this possible.  I've had one MD Anderson radiology oncologist appointment.  She definitely recommended NO radiation.  Of course I won't be able to leave that alone and will go for more opinions, although she (the RO) was brilliant and convincing.  They do a risk/benefit analysis. 

Best of luck to your aunt!