Hello Everyone

debsie1

Hi Ladies;

I am a breast cancer survivor 6+ years. My sister was just diagnosed with triple neg bc. She will have surgery as soon as possible followed by chemo and rads. This is a different kind of cancer than mine and was wondering if any of you ladies can help me out with advise and words of encouragement. I will have her join here as soon as she wraps her head around this diagnosis. Her surgeon talked about lumpectomy and I was wondering if masecetomy was the better route as I have read that triple neg has a tendancy to come back in the other breast???? Also how many chemo treatments did you girls have? Her tumor seems to be 3.2 cm and they see it in one node (will check other nodes during surgery)

Any replies would be greatly appreciated....

christina1961

Hi Deb,

There is a really active thread on here "Calling all TNS".  This thread has a lot of very supportive ladies on it. Also make sure she checks out the Triple Negative Foundation website - they have an active group as well. Another website to check out is a blog called "Positives about Negative."  I thoroughly recommend it.

I was diagnosed triple neg at biopsy but after my masectomy they found 5-10% ER receptors so I am low estrogen positive.  I had TAC x 6 as neoadjuvant chemo, then mastectomy ( in my case my surgeon recommended, said "better local control.") I also had rads.  I had one palpable node although it didn't show up on the MRI or ultrasound.  After surgery it was found that I had two positive nodes.  This is why I opted for rads as a recent study had shown a slight survival advantage for those with 1-3 positive nodes.  Because I still had a tumor at surgery after the neoadjuvant chemo, I ended up doing a clinical trial with 4 more months of chemo (Halaven.)  This is not the typical treatment, though - I just wanted to be super aggressive.  I had BRCA testing.  If I had been BRCA+, I would have had a double MX but I was negative so I just had a single.  Wishing you and your sister the best.

debsie1

Thank you Christina.....I will have my sister check out the sites you mentioned. Did they have you on Tamoxifin or Aromosin for the low estrogen positive?

Wishing you  continued good health!