Tumor Markers...How long after Diagnosis?

Darcy45

I am an 8 year survivor and getting ready for my annual with my onc.  He feels tumor markers are no longer necessary.  Any thoughts?

Thanks!

blainejennifer

I honestly believe that my Stage 4 diagnosis would have been caught a year earlier, and might have been confined to the clavicular lymph node had my Onc been running the CA 27-29 on me.

However, I had switched practices, due to a move, and this Onc. didn't believe in running annual TMs as it isn't predictive for some patients.

Be that as it may, it's a fairly cheap, easy test to run. I say, ask your Onc. to please use the test. What could it hurt?

bluepearl

Apparently you don't catch a stage 4 "early", so treatment always remains the same and is as effective. As a rule now, they don't do tumor markers for early stage....too inaccurate. I had two breast cancers and very normal TMs. If you don't panic at every little rise with TMs, it won't hurt to do them but after 8 years, not knowing what cancer type you had, size etc. your chances of recurrence is single digits now. My friend's stage 3 was always monitored, went to clavicular nodes and went on to stage 4 no matter the treatments she got. Cancer's a bitch. She is a true warrior though and is still alive, fighting every day and having gone (and going) through hell. She's been in this battle now for 14 years!

elimar86861

Without knowing your actual diagnosis, it's hard to answer this.  Some women might benefit, some not so much.  Why not go back to the source and ask the doctor how/why he comes to that conclusion for you?