Long wait between neoadjuvant chemo and surgery

Hongh

Hi everyone, happy holidays!

Thanks for this forum, learned a lot from here.

Just want to ask, has anyone had a long wait for the surgery after neoadjuvant chemo?

I finished my last chemo TCHP on 11/24, but because my blood clot (already cleared according to my recent ultrasound), my surgeon insists that I have to finish the 90 day blood thinner treatment which will be done by 1/24. That will make the gap between last chemo to surgery bigger than 8 weeks.

My oncologist started to put me on the maintenance Herceptin + Perjeta due to the delay, but not on tamoxifen yet. I am really worried that I might be unprotected for this period

moth

Have you had any scans to see how your tumor responded to the chemo?

Hongh

Hi moth, yes the original MRI shows 3 areas. The big one was seen by mammogram also, about 4.7 cm and biopsy says triple positive, The MRI after chemo shows that one was all clear now. The other 2 showed on MRI doesn’t have biopsy, one shrinked from 2.8cm to 0.8cm. The 3rd one doesn’t change much, Dr says hopefully this is not cancer.

moth

That is an encouraging sign then, that the chemo did knock the cancer down - a delay would have been more worrying if the chemo was not so effective, kwim? . I think so long as your MO and surgeon are communicating that is good. I'm sure they have your best interests at heart. If you're really worrying, you could ask for a 2nd opinion from a different oncology surgeon and see what they say.

best wishes

Hongh

the latest I got from my Dr is they are trying to move the date a little earlier so it can fall in the 8 week range, that’s really good news