Dcis : devastated and confused.

mawerickin

1. my mother aged 56 felt a lump on 5 may 15. A mammogram suggested to be malignant. Around 15 days later and after several tests she was diagnosed with Triple positive high grade cancer. High ki67.she had retraction of nipple along with it. A ct staged it at 2. T2n0m0. No lymph nodes were palpable. The oncology team suggested neo adjuvant chemotherapy to reduce tumor size and inflammation. After three cycles of TCH. (docetaxel+carbo+herceptin ) Follow up was scheduled.. This time the oncologist found one node to be palpable but said that treatment response is going good and chemo should continue. But same evening the surgeon said that it is not responding and chemo cocktail be changed. The oncologist said she is on the best available. The surgeon then reluctantly advised surgery but with guarded Prognosis. Confuse and scared we went to another surgeon.he felt lymph nodes in neck too under collar bone. He said disease is progressing. He got us a pet done the next day. The pet showed lymph nodes to be positive right up to the neck. The surgeon did mastectomy + neck dissection in 23 July 15. The final histopathology showed 9/9 apical nodes, 15/17 axial, 13/15 supra avicular to be positive. The tumour had Also grown from 3 cm in 1st ct to 4 cm. The histo says the disease is in t2n3m1. This is essentially a stage 4 classification. This has devastated us beyond belief.straight from stage 2 to 4. All sorts of question linger. Whether surgery first would have been way better. Was neo chemo a big mistake. Was lymph nodes positive but not showing on ct. What made the cancer s spread so rapidly despite chemo. Did chemo made it worse. No answers though. We will be meeting a oncologist soon to decide on further chemo, rad... Also is there anyone who has disease progress despite chemo. Are there any other chemo options.. Hope

debiann

I'm so sorry for you and your mother. What a difficult time you are having. Sending prayers for your family.

If you are looking for responses from people in similar situations you may want to post it under another topic, either triple positive, or stage IV. 

DCIS is not what your mother has, so those reading this topic may not be able to provide the advice you are looking for.