starting chemo 5 months after surgery - how effective?

ggloria007

Hi, for different reasons (genetics, covid etc) I will be starting chemo 5 months after the surgey. I am aware that this long delay does not give the best results of decreasing the recurancy or/and metastasis. Of course every patient is different, I am Stage II, clear margins and no positive nodes, howerver the tumor was Invasive grade 3. I have started with Letrazole (oestragen positive) but stopped before chemo. Does anybody of you ladies have some interesting information about the deleying adjuvant chemo for 5 months? thank you

ParakeetsRule

I wouldn't think it makes much difference. If it's going to be effective against your cancer it will still be effective now. If not, it wouldn't have been effective five months ago either.

I'd ask your doctors though. They will have access to the latest research!

moth

"Optimal times from diagnosis are < 90 days for surgery, < 120 days for chemotherapy, and, where chemotherapy is administered, < 365 days for radiotherapy"

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1245/s10434-0...

full text is avail on some of the databases is you know where to look....

ggloria007

thank you

ggloria007

this is realy helpful moth. thank you

SarahMaude

For anyone looking, here is the link to the full article that moth posted. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6123282/

It’s pretty interesting and consistent with what my RO said. I was confused about why we order chemo before radiotherapy for HR+ HER2- breast cancer after surgery. The statement that the systemic treatment may negate the increase in local recurrence vs distant recurrence makes sense. My uninformed thought was to treat from center of invasion outward. But the fact they have studied the order with regard to overall survival is reassuring.

I also can see that delayed treatment is preferable to no treatment. And the intervals are obviously a preferable standard, not an absolute.

The section on how our increases in imaging, reconstruction planning and tumor marking also match my experience. Getting clean margins and the right surgery are important. Again, it’s good to know that these changes in schedule have been analyzed.