stage 2 infiltrating duct carcinoma

bgeo

my 40 year old cousin was diagnosed with this last week and radical mastectomy done, they found 2 out of 8 lymph nodes postive and this tumour is her2/neu postive breast cancer.the tumour was 4cm, it was also estrogen and progesterone positive. they said they will start on chempo and herceptin. the family obviosuly is shocked and worried. Just wanted to know if this is the best treatment and what are the chances of metastasis.

thanks

bgeo

still waiting for your replies!!!!!please do write in. Discouraging not to see anyone reply!

Megadotz

I'm sorry to hear that your cousin has joined our club.  Every  breast cancer has its own "personality" and  there's no one size fits all treatment.  There are many different options for chemo  and  Herceptin is standard  treatment for HER2 positive tumors. The main portion of the  board has some great resources that explain various factors.  

 

A good place to start is http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/diagnosis/   this gives explanations of  what the various factors are in the diagnosis.

 

The treatment section   http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/  describes  the various treatments, how they work and what side effects to expect.   Besides surgery  and chemo therapy your cousins treatment will probably include  targeted treatment (herceptin for the HER2 positive) and hormonal therapy ( for the estrogen/ progesterone positive).

 

 

I'm not sure if there's any good way to predict what the chance of metasis is -- positive nodes show that  there's been local movement  outside of the original tumor,  a finding of LVI (lympho-vascular invasion) would mean that it has moved  into the blood/lymph system. 

 

All the best to your cousin and to you for supporting her on this challenging journey.