Mom diagnosed with invasive mammary carcinoma on july 6th.

Anonymous

Mom diagnosed with invasive mammary carcinoma on july 6th.

Jcextra123

So my mom is 67 years old. She does yearly mammograms every year and did not skip a year even during the pandemic. She got a mammo this past June 30th they wanted to do an ultrasound as they found a solid mass in her right breast. Well after they did the ultrasound they said they needed a biopsy. Which was all done on the same day. Results of biopsy were 0.8cm to 1.2cm mass was found to be invasive mammary carcinoma. After this was confirmed we asked for the results of her biopsy which was given to us when we saw her breast surgeon who will do her surgery on July 27. In the biopsy it said mom's cancer was low grade of 1 and had a low percentage of ki67 protein which meant the cancer was not spreading very fast if at all. But that it did have her2 positive but was her cp ratio of only 1.5 when fish results were examined. Versus 4.4 for the imunochemistry. We are going to do an oncotype test to hopefully rule out chemo treatments. The biopsy stated as of July 1st there was no lymphovascular invasion as it stated it was not present or not identified. Can a woman 67 years of ago skip chemo and radiation and only have lumpectomy surgery and take hormone pills if the oncotype comes back with a low score. We have piled up on grapes. They contain antioxidant reversitrol. They feel the cancer is at stage 1. It is low grade. Any reply would be helpful.

Salamandra

Hey Jcextra,

Any patient can skip any treatment at all if they are willing to live with the risk. I would think twice about that though and here's why:

Radiation is generally pretty well tolerated, with some (though apparently very low, especially with the modern tech) risk of long (as in 20+ years) term negative impact. Since your mom is older, the long term is less of a concern.

It's a real coin toss how well hormonal therapy is tolerated. Some women can take any at all and it's like a sugar pill, and your mom may be one of those! But... some women have to spend a year or a few years trying different drugs/brands and dealing with side effects on a scale from annoying to debilitating before they find a drug they can tolerate, and some small minority don't find one at all. Since your mom is older, this impact on short term quality of life is probably more of a concern.

Basically I think a plan that counts on her being able to tolerate hormone treatment is risky. There is a study that was linked here on the boards showing that hormone treatment actually has worse impact on long term quality of life than chemo - a study specifically on post menopausal women.

When I was getting radiation (at MSK which is well reputed) I met a woman in her late 80s. Her docs let her skip the hormone treatment but insisted on radiation, and she acquiesced. It wasn't a walk in the park for her, but it was doable especially since she was retired and didn't have to worry about missing work, and it was short term and done.

Since radiation is especially effective for preventing local recurrence, it means it helps prevent more surgical procedures too, which can also be more risky/longer recovery time the older one gets.

Good luck with the decisions and the treatment!

Jcextra123

So if she does the radiation therapy at 67 years of age. She is already retired and lives with me. But I work 12 to 13 hours a day. If she does the radiation. Will she still be able to do her daily activities like walking. Going to the grocery store and going to church on Sunday. And what about the thread that had all of this disturbing information about women who do radiation therapy who are violated like a piece of meat? I can't allow her to go through that. I truly hope it's not like that at a majority of the places where they give you radiation treatment. So by tolerable do you mean they can still cook. Buy groceries and drive or exercise like they would have before being on the treatment? Because she is independent and in fairly good shape?

Spookiesmom

Sure she can carry on. She may be extra tired during, and may have some skin issues. The women you read who felt violated and a piece of meat aren’t common. Nobody likes any of the cancer treatments. If you are uncomfortable speak up.

I first did rads at 66 Second time at 70. And will do it again if necessary.

It’s HER decision what treatment she wants. Not yours. Your role is to support her.

Jcextra123

YES it truly is HER decision to live. I will and have been very supportive since hearing of this diagnosis on July 6th. I went with her to the breast surgeon on July 14th. And to the oncologist this past Thursday the 22nd and to pre op this past Friday the 23rd. I have taken hours off work to do this as they don't do anything on weekends. Very supportive. We will probably go with the radiation treatments if it cuts the chance of this cancer coming back down dramatically. I just wanted to make sure she is comfortable while receiving that type of treatment and that she can maintain her active lifestyle.

Harley07

@Jcextra - I may have missed it but is your mom having a mastectomy or lumpectomy? Is the cancer hormone receptive? Oncotype or Mammaprint results? What are her doctors recommending? And what does your mom want?

If radiation is recommended, would her doctor consider an accelerated schedule? I’m 63 and had 5 sessions of accelerated partial breast radiation (APBI) and worked full time through it.

I may have been one of the posters complaining about how I was treated by the RO. I regret to this day that I didn’t seek out a different RO as I have options in my area. I would not let that deter your mom from a potentially life saving treatment.

This is a stressful time as you work thru thedetails of diagnosis and treatment. Best wishes to your mom and to you

exbrnxgrl

Jcextra,

Jumping in on the rads issue. Your mom should be able to carry on almost normally during rads. She may start to feel tired at one point but that is generally manageable. If you are basing your worries about poor ro treatment on things you have read here, please remember that people who have had problems tend to post far more than people who don’t. Forums such as this one are great but do lean more toward those experiencing issues. Being treated like a”piece of meat” is hardly common, though very unfortunate. If you’ve gotten the impression that radiologists and rad techs as a whole are cold, uncaring professionals then you have gotten the wrong impression. Wishing your mom the best.

Jcextra123

She is having a lumpectomy. And the cancer she has according to her biopsy results and pathology results is low grade of 1. Estrogen receptor positive. Progesterone receptor negative. And her2 negative (FISH) But her2 positive. Immunohistory. Mom.only wants the lumpectomy and hormonal therapy. She doesn't know enough about radiation to the breast as of yet. As she looks more into it she may consider it if it's able to keep cancer out of her body.

Jcextra123

I hope and pray they are warm gentle and caring professionals that are committed to keeping cancer out of my mom's body. That is the hope

exbrnxgrl

Jcextra,

I am not saying that there aren’t a few bad eggs in the world of radiology, as there are in all professions, but please, please let go of the notion that this is even something to worry about. It should not be a factor in your mother's decision making process. Take care

Jcextra123

What you were trying to convey has been noted. This is a lot to take in. Well we have the lumpectomy at 1pm tommorrow Cst and we will get updated on if any lymph nodes were involved. And we will proceed from there with the best course of treatment options available.

AliceBastable

Is your Mom in good health otherwise? I was 68 when I had my lumpectomy and 33 rounds of radiation. I got pink on my clavicle and had some dry-skin-type flaking around the nipple and incision area. The radiation took just a few minutes each day; it took longer to change from my top to the rad wraparound and back than for the actual session. I checked in with the radiologist once a week for about five minutes. The only bad part was the initial setup session that took about an hour. It my have been more annoying and uncomfortable for me because I'd had a nephrectomy on the same side and my body wasn't quite ready to be stretched out, but there is a time limit when radiation is most effective so I couldn't put it off. But otherwise, I felt great during radiation.

Look through the different topics here and you'll see lots of people who sailed through radiation but had major issues with anti-hormonals. Every person is different and there is no way to predict how any one person will react to either treatment. Has your mother been reading some of the comments here? I'd encourage her to join this site so she can get her own information and make her decisions based on what she reads, not filtered through you, and, of course, based on information from her oncologist. It's easier to answer questions and concerns from the actual patient instead of a family member, too.

Jcextra123

She has prediabetes. High cholesterol and high blood pressure. Which she takes medications for all three of those. I'm going to encourage her to read these message boards going forward. She is very interested In taking treatment to keep the cancer from coming back. She just doesn't want it to interfere with her independence.

AliceBastable

I'm mildly diabetic (beyond pre-diabetes but controlled with one Metformin/day), and have high blood pressure and high cholesterol, both controlled with meds and none of those affect my life in the least. Treatment to prevent cancer from spreading may temporarily interfere with a person's independence to some degree, or it may be a minor inconvenience, there's no way to know ahead of time. But NOT treating it and having metastatic spread would interfere even more, and lead to much more severe treatments in the vast majority of cases, and a shortened life.