Infiltrating Duct carcinoma

First, spacebmt, I want to say that my heart goes out to you for your loss. There are no words that can adequate express the feeling of losing a mom, especially to such a vicious disease.

Wow, icey, my breast surgeon didn't do any scans prior to surgery and mentioned to me that they could not stage the cancer until after it was removed and biopsied. Even so, I would never have allowed for "it" to remain inside of me, regardless of the stage.

My medical oncologist sends his patients for scans (in my case, head, chest, abdomen, pelvis and bone) prior to starting chemo, but not necessarily prior to recommending the chemo regime. If the scans come back with something after chemo has started, they adjust then.

In my case, I was IDC, 2.7 cm, ER+/PR-;HER-, clear margins and no node involvement. But I had uterine cancer when I was 27, so he requested a full boat set of scans. I got the impression he might not have requested so many had my cancer history been different and just going off the post-tumor removal pathology report.

I have no idea what, if any, scans or imaging my radiation oncologist will request/require, since I won't start with any radiation (I'm to get 33 hits) until after the chemo is complete.

I do now have to go back for another needle core biopsy of 2 suspicious nodes (found in the CT scans pre-chemo), and an MRI to get a better look at 2 liver lesions (also found in the CT scans pre-chemo).

Every bit of treatment or protocol depends so much on the unique situation of each patient and on the standard of procedure that the patient's various doctors normally use.

It's almost impossible to say, "X-step should have been done first, or Y-step is always used."

That's why, spacebmt, unfortunately, your question needs to be directed to a highly qualified person or group (such as Sloan Kettering perhaps?) who can review all the information and images and reports.

Also, another thing to keep in mind is that virtually every year, doctors and health care professionals working in this field learn more and more and more about the disease, and, fortunately for us, use that information going forward to adjust treatments as necessary.

What might have been an acceptable protocol 2 or 3 years ago, may well be done differently now. But that wouldn't automatically imply that the doctors provided less-than-standard care.

hi all, give me a suggestion from your knowledge and experience. my mom(age 50) is a 10 years survivor of breast cancer. T3N0M0 at jan 2000. received chemo (CMF) + radiation+ 5 years tamoxifen successfully. no symptoms of recurrence yet by the grace of almighty. but recently she can not tolerate any medication.(say amoxicilin for infection or pain killer or others). she is becoming weak day by day. her liver function, ultrasonogram of abdomen, chest x-ray, ecg, CT scan brain are ok. doc diagnosed her sinusitis as she often claims for headache but she fails to receive medicines for sinusitis. she has less interest even in food intake. she claims for acidity to take food. do u have any good suggestion for my mom? any informative website for this or any person having similar experience? i will b grateful to u. good luck

thanks linda for your reply. you are right. naturally depression is one problem of my mom. her major problem is doc prescribes medicines but she can not tolerate any medicines. she feels irritation or weakness if she take medicine (antibiotics or others). i dont know, is there any chances for immunity degradation after long time survivor(10 years+). seeking more suggestions regarding this. good luck