Locally advanced bc

Brianhutson

my mom is diagnosed with locally advanced breast cancer and she is going through chemo now already 3 chemos are done still 13 more to go before surgery I needed help from all of you about this locally advanced bc doctors said its very dangerous and i am worried about her and Already m in depression and also if any of you can help me with information that how we can understand that the chemo is working and cancerous tumor is shrinking do we need to do some test or self examination

Ur help will be very appreciable

Th

Meg101

Bump

xxyzed

Locally advanced just means that the cancer has spread to her lymph nodes. It is still considered curable but has a greater risk of recurrence than early stage breast cancer. It normally means you will be offered aggressive treatment where with early stage they consider the risk of recurrence vs the side effects when recommending a treatment plan.

Her oncologist will physically check her at each appointment and will ask her if she has any new aches and pains or side effects and will investigate with scans any that seem inconsistent with the treatments she has received. They are much quicker to suggest a scan if you are exhibiting symptoms with locally advanced than if you are early stage.

Brianhutson

xxyzed thank you for ur reply it helped me understanding the situa

beauz

Hi Brianhutson, on my first appointment with my surgeon, he had a look at the lump and then decided I should have chemo first. I then had CT scan and bone scan to see if it had spread to other areas of my body. I then went for my appointment with MO. He told me my lump was locally advanced. One of my underarm lymphnodes was palpable of 2cm. I searched on the site and guessed that mine was about stage IIIB. There is a forum for stage III here. You can see there that a lot of ladies are doing well years after diagnoses. Take it easy and look after yourself. It's important that you stay well and strong for your mum.