Newly diagnosed / lumpectomy- inquiry?!

catmad0701

I had lumpectomy of 2.1 cm mass and also had sentinel lymph node biopsy done last week. Preliminary results show nodes clear. Will be following up with surgeon in 10 days.

No genetic involvement for breast cancer. Also, I have Triple negative breast cancer. What's the pro/con of having chemo ? I now have the lump out and lymph node biopsy shows nothing

I was wondering statistically what's the chances of it returning or being somewhere else in the body at this point?

In other words,,, folks that opted out of chemo that happen to have my circumstances vs. folks that got chemo — what were their outcomes in comparison to each other ? I can't seem to find stats onnthis

Beesie

Welcome!

Unfortunately no one can answer your questions because it is different for everyone. Even having the same size tumor and no positive nodes, there are many other variables that affect risk. For example:

What is the tumor grade?

Is the tumor ER+ or ER-?

Is the tumor PR+ or PR-?

Is the tumor HER2+ or HER2-?

If your tumor is ER+ and HER2-, then in all likelihood a sample of the removed breast tissue will be sent for an Oncotype test. To determine the aggressiveness of the cancer, this test assesses 21 genes within the tumor, and provides a recurrence score, a recommendation as to whether chemo would be beneficial, and an estimate as to the recurrence risk reduction you would get from chemo, assuming that you also take endocrine therapy. These test results are specific to distant (metastatic) risk.

Local recurrence risk, a recurrence in the breast area, is separate. Key factors here are tumor size, grade and the size of the surgical margins.

Do you have your pathology reports from your biopsy and surgery? A lot of the information I've mentioned (ER, PR, HER2, grade, margins) will be included there.

Do you have an appointment set up with a Medical Oncologist? The recommendation on whether you should consider chemo will come from the MO.

Ingerp

This was under the TN umbrella so I'm assuming you're triple negative? I'm a numbers person so hearing how a particular treatment affected my probability of recurrence made decisions pretty easy for me. I believe chemo might be more strongly recommended if you are TN--you don't have any other treatment arrows in your quiver. This tool helps some women decide:

https://breast.predict.nhs.uk/index.html