Circulating Tumor Cells
I just received the news that my circulating tumor cells number is 2. It has always been 0, even when I was originally diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011 and still had the tumors in me. My Oncologist is concerned that the cancer may be back and I need to go get scanned. Has anyone had their numbers increase and NOT had cancer? What do people think about the number being 2 for my circulating tumor cells?
Comments
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Hi kbarry67,
You are not listing your history, so I wonder what stage are you? Why is the MO checking circulating tumor cells? I don't think this is a standard protocol.
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I've never heard of circulating tumor cells.....is this like tumor markers? uggg just one more thing to worry about!
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My history is that I was dx at age 43 with stage 2A with lymph node involvement ER- PR- HER2+ in 2011. I underwent surgery....dbl mast., chemo- taxotere, carboplatin, and herceptin, and radiation. I have had numerous "issues" since tx including further breast lumps (turned out to be cysts), failed expanders and implants, bleeding twice after chemo induced menopause (again more cysts), very low red and white blood counts and a scare of possible MDS/leukemia, a mutated ASXL1 gene (most likely from chemo)...the list goes on and on. So, this was the longest I went without seeing my Oncologist since Feb of 2011. It had been 6 months and she always checked my circulating tumor cells and Vit D with all my routine blood work. The circulating tumor number was always 0 until today...now it's a 2...which given my ER- status and history she feels is not good.
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Here you go kayb:
https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/8/topic/7...
When I'm on my phone I have BCO open in Safari, then Google the discussion board, search for the reference, tap on the URL and then paste it into the post.
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there is some info here "minimal residual disease and CTC in BC"
http://books.google.dk/books?id=O7Qf2GZGoKoC&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=CTCs+in+breast+cancer:+five+decades+later.&source=bl&ots=YZCa8AlJGG&sig=VnDYUJqjDrspNRhMeTcwg90embM&hl=da&sa=X&ei=8SxuVMPREqvSygP89oCACQ&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=CTCs%20in%20breast%20cancer%3A%20five%20decades%20later.&f=falseIsn't it possible that the number is false positive?
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