can cancer grow during chemo?

Unfortunately it does happen. If it is contained in the breast, the outlook is good and it is not considered mets.

You are not done for, this could be a new primary.  It isn't cancer until the biopsy.

Did you get herceptin for a year too?

Apple, don't jump the gun in calling this mets, even it is breast cancer.  If it's a new primary, which it very likely is, it could have a different endocrine signature from the first.  Yes, it does mean that it grew on chemo, but again, if it is different than the other, the chemo could still have done the trick for the first breast.  A lot of questions, yes, but try to stay calm until you figure out just what you're dealing with here.

Just to repeat Janis' question: did you get a year of Herceptin? You indicate you are Her-2 + in your signature line.

Lisa

Did you do Herceptin ? It is given like your chemo drugs. Usually it is given once every 3 weeks for 1 year.

Did your pthology report say you were Her2+?

I am a 39 year old female who has no family history of breast cancer and tested negative for the breast cancer genes.

In December of 2017, I noticed a hard mass on my upper chest above my left breast.

A mammogram, ultrasound, and biopsy were completed.

I was diagnosed with Invasive or Infiltrative Ductal Carcinoma.

After an MRI was completed it was noted that the tumor was 4.2 cm and there was involvement with at least one lymph node. A PET scan was also completed and it did not indicate that the cancer had metastasized.

It was staged at stage IIB.

The tumor was estrogen positive (but a weak positive that the oncologist said was almost negative).

It was progesterone receptor negative and HER-2 negative.

It was decided that I would have chemotherapy first in order to shrink the tumor.

I had four rounds of Adriamycin along with Cytoxan.

Another MRI was completed after those first four rounds.

The tumor had reduced in size to 3.2 cm.

After that I started 12 weekly rounds of Taxol.

I completed those rounds and another MRI was done shortly after.

The tumor measured 2.9 cm.

I was told that I should have a plastic surgeon as well as the general surgeon fix the area. The thought being that the general surgeon would remove the tumor and any lymph nodes that still contained cancer and the plastic surgeon would follow him and repair the area by moving some tissue around. Otherwise I would have a pretty significant deformity.

It was stressed that I should have surgery not more than a month and a half after my last chemotherapy treatment.

Despite that the doctors were unable to stick to their own timeline due to their vacation schedules. I was told that would be okay to wait from the general surgeon.

When the surgery date was finally decided it was two months and a day past my last chemotherapy appointment.

When they went into remove the tumor it had not only grown in size it had grown a tremendous amount in the two months from the last chemotherapy treatment.

Instead of being 2.9 cm the tumor was 5.1 cm. They removed it along with 18 lymph nodes. 3 of the 18 lymph nodes tested positive for cancer.

The surgeon was unable to get clean margins despite the fact that he was quoted as saying he thought he got it all.

Because the tumor had grown so quickly and the surgeon had been unable to get clean margins, they decided to do another PET scan to see if the cancer spread to anywhere else in my body.

The PET scan revealed hot spot areas of suspected cancer in one of my lungs and also in my pelvic bones. They do not know if it is in my brain at this point because a PET scan can't locate hotspot areas in the brain. They will need to do a brain MRI in order to determine if it is in there.

I feel as though my oncologist is well over her head with this. She has no answers as to why it grew so much between the end of chemo and the surgery date. She also doesn't know how it was able to spread to other parts of my body during chemo.

We won't know for sure if it is cancer in my bones and lung until we do a biopsy. We were not able to do that yet because this was after 4:30 on a Friday when we got the PET scan results.

I am going to get a referral from her and go to Mayo. I am sure that my oncologist is great when it comes to treating straight forward cancer but at this point I want to deal with someone who has more experience. It was obvious from our conversation on Friday she has no idea what to do or how to proceed.

Has anyone else run into this kind of situation? Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Kiki26, I'm sorry you are going through this. It sucks. There are some similarities in our situations - I am also young, had no genetics or family history, and I have a fast-growing and aggressive cancer that behaves in unusual ways. It baffled all my local doctors. You are right to go to Mayo, or somewhere comparable. Go somewhere good, no matter what. Now I'm at a major university hospital, and it is SO much better. Some of us really need that extra help and expertise.

I just thought I'd chime in here because my cancer did grow during chemo. A lot. Long story short, but I had a mastectomy... five weeks later there were little red dots all around the scar. It was my cancer. The doctors basically said "well you just had surgery, no point in a biopsy, just start chemo." By the time I was done with four rounds of dose dense AC chemo two months later, the red dots had grown from the size of small mosquito bites to the size of lima beans, and spanned roughly 6cm. This was skin metastasis, so I had the surreal experience of watching my breast cancer grow right under my skin, week by week, right before my eyes, during chemo. When I finished AC chemo I went to a better cancer center, and they were able to get things under control.

But yes... some of our cancers do grow during chemo, unfortunately. It's possible your cancer grew that much during chemo. It's also possible the imaging was not giving an accurate picture of the cancer to begin with. In a sense I've had both things happen: my cancer grew crazy fast, and my imaging and surgery results have frequently disagreed with each other. It's hard to say, and I don't know the answers, but when you do go to Mayo, ask them what they think happened.

My advice is to get to Mayo asap, before your upcoming biopsies even, if you can. You can make an appointment for a second opinion, just to get your foot in the door. I hope that helps and that you find someone who can really help you - for me it made all the difference. Best wishes to you and please keep us posted.