question about staging and prognosis

elise24601

My oncologist did not give me a stage yet - from the path report (which indicates multiple 1.5-3cm IDC tumors on left breast) I gather it's either II or III depending on how many lymph nodes are involved - they haven't biopsied those yet, I went straight into treatment, which includes chemo BEFORE surgery, to shrink the tumors.

So I guess my question is, if the size is reduced significantly in between chemo and surgery, could I be "down staged"? And what if I have lymph node involvement now, but then it clears up after chemo & before mastectomy? (fingers crossed). Has this happened to anyone else or am I being too optimistic? My onc said the bad news is I'm high grade/aggressive, but good news is that my type usually responds well to chemo.

Ultimately my treatment will be the same no matter what stage (TC x 6, double mastectomy, rads, tamoxifen) BUT I want to know because the prognosis/5 survival rates are very different (like 20 percent), from what I have read.

It's important to me, I think, to know if I have "early" or "advanced" breast cancer. I am 31 years old and trying to figure out if I should plan to live a long life or just enjoy the next few years as much as possible and make peace with dying young.

debiann

I'M so sorry you have to be here at such a young age. Here's what I've learned from this forum, "there's no predicting what will happpen". I have seen very small early stage cancers recur and large tumors with lymph node involvement not recur. Statics can't predict what's going to happen specifically to you. You either will or will not recur, no one knows. Live life in the present and try not to worry about the future. Good luck to you.