Anyone have chemo before surgery?

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Hopex3
Hopex3 Member Posts: 397
edited June 2014 in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

I am having chemo first before my Bmx in January. Finished 4 rounds of AC, just had my first of 4 rounds of taxol today, then surgery in January. I'm wondering if there is anyone else going my same route and what your experience is.

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  • Luah
    Luah Member Posts: 1,541
    edited November 2012

    Hope: Yes, there are many women here who did chemo before surgery. You might want to post on the monthly Chemo thread to find others at your stage of treatment... or on the Surgery thread to know what may come next. All the best. 

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  • Mumtobe
    Mumtobe Member Posts: 159
    edited November 2012

    Hi hope,

    Yes I had four rounds of AC before having my MX, pathology report showed complete regression meaning chemo did it's job effectively thank God. Started my first of 12 weekly rounds of Taxol this week.

    Best of luck with it.

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  • Hopex3
    Hopex3 Member Posts: 397
    edited November 2012

    Luah....I will check those threads out. Thanks for the tip!

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  • Trina25
    Trina25 Member Posts: 99
    edited November 2012

    Hi, I had a lumpectomy that discovered my breast cancer and I am undergoing chemo now ( 3 down 3 to go) and after a months rest I will be having a mastecomy and also radiation .

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  • KSteve
    KSteve Member Posts: 486
    edited December 2012

    Hope - I also had chemo first. Finished chemo on 12/30/10 and had my bmx on 1/8/11. I had a complete response meaning no remaining cancer cells in the tissue or the lymph nodes removed in the bmx. It was reassuring to know the chemo did its job, especially since I started with a large tumor and lymph node involvement. Don't hesitate to ask any questions on your mind!

    Hugs,

    Kathy

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  • christina1961
    christina1961 Member Posts: 736
    edited December 2012

    Hope, I had TAC before my mastectomy - six cycles.  We thought I was having a complete response, but during surgery they found the chemo had only shrunk the tumor a little and I still had two positive lymph nodes (neither of which had shown up on the MRI or mammogram.   I had negative margins at surgery - 2 cm around the tumor in basically each direction, but because of the incomplete response to chemo, I decided to also do a clinical trial of additional chemo afterward. I was very upset and disappointed, but I'm still glad I did chemo first because otherwise I would not have known.  My biopsy before surgery showed triple negative, but after the surgery the tumor was retested and it had 5-10% ER receptors.  My oncologist thinks it mutated in response to the chemo. I am on tamoxifen now.

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