Radiation after mastectomy neg nodes neoadjuvant chemo

Stephmoen

ok I have a question this article really has me thinking to ousg radiation not so much bReast but lymph nodes did anyone else do this?

http://www.eortc.org/news/irradiation-of-regional-nodes-in-stage-i-iii-breast-cancer-patients-affects-overall-survival/

bluefin

My RO gave me this study and said this applied to me as I had a large centrally located tumor (which was also near the chest wall). I am doing chest wall + regional lymph node radiation even though no cancer was found in my lymph nodes and I had PCR from neoadjuvant chemo.

I had too many high risk factors for recurrence, so I'm doing all I can the first time around.

Stephmoen

thank you for the reply bluefin I also feel like I have many high risk factirs grade 3 her 2 positive and I am 30 years old I want to all possible..how do you get a radiologist I'm thinking you must be referred to one? I wi ask my oncologist this Friday at my appointment

bluefin

Yep I would recommend meeting with a radiation oncologist to see what they recommend.

In my case, I had several opinions (second, third, etc) and all recommended it.

Good luck!

TNBCat37

Hi, what kind of reconstruction plan your plastic surgeon will use after radiation? Mine declined implants based one, because the failure rate is so high after the skin gets burned internally by radiation. My PS can only do DIEP flap or a robot surgery harvesting my back muscle to fill into the breast. Both leaves ugly scars, especially DIEP flap. And if my back muscle is used, it won't grow back, and I might not be able to play tennis, badminton, golf, all the things I love before. Basically the right hand side is kind of semi disabled. Do you worry about reconstruction? Doe to reasons above, I'm very hesitate to do radiation

bluefin

TNBCat37: My PS is willing to try implants on me, depending on how my skin looks at the end of treatment. I am 3 weeks in and my collarbone area is more pink than over my TE. We expanded quite a bit prior to radiation, so he thinks if the pocket does shrink significantly that we can just use a smaller implant (which I would be fine with). If they fail (and I understand it's a risk because of the radiation), I will likely do DIEP flap. Figured it's worth a shot to try implants first.

I have heard in some cases doing the implant exchange prior to starting radiation yields less implant rejection, but I just didn't have that kind of time in my case.