Surgery Wednesday question re lymph nodes

amybirnbaum1

Hi All, After 6 grueling rounds of TCHP (I am triple +) my lumpectomy is Wednsesday. According to surgeon I did not achieve a complete response, there is some residual tumor, about 1 cm he feels by ultrasound. (It shrunk by half) My question is, none of my scans showed positive lymphs (I am clinically stage 1A) but am wondering if there was some cancer in them is there a chance that the TCHP got it? I knew it GOT me! Thank you all.

kathabus

I don't have any personal experience with this, but I do know that yes....chemo can kill cancer in lymph nodes. And that's the goal.

I was clinically 1a before surgery, but then 1b after surgery when we found a positive node. I didn't do chemo, but I did radiation in hopes of killing any cancer that may have been in the lymph nodes. Good luck with your upcoming surgery and let us know how it goes!

MinusTwo

amy - Sorry to say I've been there. A micromet apparently escaped before my bilaterlal mastectomy - after which I didn't have any other treatment because margins were clean. For the recurrence, I had 6 rounds of TCHP and did not have a complete response. Even though I had ALND surgery next to remove everything possible that might still have been there, my oncologist wanted me to do AC chemo - I think mostly because I was HER2+ and that's an aggressive addition. So I was supposed to do 4 rounds of AC, but could only get through three before my blood work tanked. Moving along - I then had radiation & took Herceptin for the rest of the year.

It won't be fun, but you can do it. Are you at a medical center where you can ask the doc to take your case before a tumor board where docs of all disciplines meet regularly? Or you can meet with another doc for a second opinion.