is 6 percentage points worth it?

Missourimom54

Chemo and radiation reduces my chance of my early stage TN breast cancer from coming back in other parts of my body from 10 percent to 6 percent. Just four points. My doctor is leaving it up to me to decide. Only thing he is insisting on is radiation, of course. I just don't know if its worth it. Anybody ever been in a similar situation?

santabarbarian

Missourimom, is the doc saying you have a 90% chance of recurrence? Your numbers do not make sense to me for early stage TNBC.

Missourimom54

I am a math idiot. read my revised post. so sorry.

pupmom

TN is aggressive and you can't use hormonal therapy. This is just me, but I would throw everything in the arsenal at it.

Missourimom54

Thank you!

santabarbarian

I might skip the chemo in your place, but it's such a hard decision. You also might be able to shave your odds of recurrence with an intense exercise plan, appropriate supplements, and keto diet...

After pCR I am in the 10% risk of recurrence category now. I am doing everything I can to make my system unfriencly to cancer.

If you did chemo, could you skip rads? That might be strategic as then if you had a recurrence you could do rads for it and avoid a MX.

Missourimom54

no, cant skip radiation. my shave margins still indicated some active cancer cells after surgery. I am started on a health and diet regiment

santabarbarian

If you had cells after surgery, it might be wise to do chemo... From what I can tell the AC/T regimen is worse than the one I had which was taxotere and carboplatin. Maybe you can do a "mellow" chemo? But again, if you were to have a recurrence, however, unlikely, would doing chemo make treating the recurrence more difficult? You want to play the long game too...