What does a complete repsonse to chemo mean for our survival?

 I have been obsessing over this very thing all morning,

 Land O Lake,

I had some dx as you triple negative stage 2b one node. All this was non palible post chemo and undetectable even by MRI. Results from Path were good only few cells remained in a tiny sample of tissue removed and those were non invasive. Same with nodes only few cells in one and those were contained within the node. I know I had more nodes affected prior to chemo because the MRI lit up like 4th of july in that area prior to chemo, Chemo wiped it out . they called my results not complete but my oncologists used the word "supurb" I will take that. I have no idea what that means long term, what I do know is triple negative is not good and borderlin stage 3 is not good because we dont really know if or how many nodes were really affected. My doctors say i am cancer free as of now and to get on with my life. I am curious to what the answer to your question is ...I am starting rads next week for 33 sessions.. Merry Christmas

I just got my pathology report back from my surgery last wednesday, I had a 3 cm tumor with at least 1, possibley four nodes and had a complete pathological response to chemo, no signs of cancer found.  Dont know what that means yet, but I know its what my onocologist was hoping for, and all my drs seem very pleased.

Generally, a complete pathological response to chemotherapy is good for your prognosis.

Interestingly enough, it is rare to see such complete responses with large tumors...the chemo is getting better (taxanes combined with the anthracyclines).

Usually, complete pathological responses are associated with having small cancer burden to start with.

The real answer is "unknown.'

There is some reason to believe that your risk of recurrence (as an ER/PR neg patient) goes down after about 2 years.

This excellent response to chemotherapy is a good reason to celebrate!

Unfortunately, we are the "new data"...long term outcomes are not known.

Tammy Lou

Hey Annie,

I am with you on that. I was on phone all day yesterday pushing my radiation up from begining of next month to next week. I had surgery Oct 7. I finally got an appt for the 11th of this month. Which falls into the 4-6 week standard for radiation after surgery. But I really had to squeek and hound by phone. Did you get into radiation too late? 

Benefit of radiation Newalex is that is mops any stray cells chemo and surgery may have missed. with so many microscopic cells floating around its a good idea.

Hi Everyone,

              I am glad to find someone else who has had CHEMO first. I felt my surgeon rushed me into chemo and now they have found more spots on the MRI so I may have to have a mast after all.

      I just left a site and looked at pictures of a lump, that sorta scared me, I know everyones size is different, I only weight 100 lbs and size is around a 34a...........so he wanted to shrink the tumor first. After talking to lots of people I think tomorrow I am telling him to just go for a mast, don't know yet about reconstruction ..........lots of painful comments on here about that!!!!

         If you have cehmo first do you have to have it after too?? and what about raidation someone said its a everyday thing for 6 weeks?? who can work with that schudule??

       I am just anoiuos to get it over with now. I wish the best to all of you. any one in the Gilbert az area??? Sweet Pam 

I had a "complete response" to a clinical trial and was in "complete remission".  After a 2 month treatment break, I was back in the game, cancer again in my liver.  It's been a year since then, and I am still trying to find the chemo drug that will work for me again.

Annie, thanks to your post regarding getting zapped as soon as possible, I am upping my initial rads appointment. 

I completed my chemo last Friday and was going to wait till after the holidays to start rads (January) but now I just want to  get it done ASAP!!!!!!

Thank you for caring enough to share that information!

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have experienced a pathologic complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy.  After a whirlwind of diagnostics and doctor visits in April, I began chemo in early May in an attempt to shrink my large, high grade, triple negative tumor enough to consider breast-conserving surgery.  I was initially terrified at the idea of doing chemo first, but it didn't take very long to convince me that it was absolutely the right treatment sequence.

My oncologist was stunned when my tumor shrank dramatically from 6cm to 3cm after the very first round of biweekly A/C -- an 88% reduction in volume -- and clinically disappeared altogether after the third infusion!  I received weekly Taxol following the A/C and had a lumpectomy and lymph node dissection in September.  My pathology report indicated no residual cancer cells at the primary tumor site and 17 negative lymph nodes.  That's an outcome you always hope for, but can never count on.  I am looking forward to completing rads at the end of this week and getting on with my life.

I'm very grateful that the side effects were minimal and tolerable enough to allow me to continue working full-time through both chemo and radiation, with only a short medical leave for surgery.  This helped immensely in keeping my life as normal as possible throughout this challenging phase of my life.  Living and working in the same city as my cancer center also greatly reduced the time and travel burden, especially with 6+ weeks of daily radiation treatments.

From everything I've learned from my wonderful oncologist and personally reviewing a lot of research literature, the prognosis with a pathologic complete response to neoadjuvant chemo is typically very good.  All in all, life is good these days and I am extra thankful for many things this Thanksgiving.