Dcis : devastated and confused.

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mawerickin
mawerickin Member Posts: 5
edited August 2015 in DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma In Situ)
  1. my mother aged 56 felt a lump on 5 may 15. A mammogram suggested to be malignant. Around 15 days later and after several tests she was diagnosed with Triple positive high grade cancer. High ki67.she had retraction of nipple along with it. A ct staged it at 2. T2n0m0. No lymph nodes were palpable. The oncology team suggested neo adjuvant chemotherapy to reduce tumor size and inflammation. After three cycles of TCH. (docetaxel+carbo+trastuzumab ) Follow up was scheduled.. This time the oncologist found one node to be palpable but said that treatment response is going good and chemo should continue. But same evening the surgeon said that it is not responding and chemo cocktail be changed. The oncologist said she is on the best available. The surgeon then reluctantly advised surgery but with guarded Prognosis. Confuse and scared we went to another surgeon.he felt lymph nodes in neck too under collar bone. He said disease is progressing. He got us a pet done the next day. The pet showed lymph nodes to be positive right up to the neck. The surgeon did mastectomy + neck dissection in 23 July 15. The final histopathology showed 9/9 apical nodes, 15/17 axial, 13/15 supra avicular to be positive. The rumour had Also grown from 3 cm in 1st ct to 4 cm. The histo says the disease is in t2n3m1. This is essentially a stage 4 classification. This has devastated us beyond belief. All sorts of question linger. Whether surgery first would have been way better. Was neo chemo a big mistake. Was lymph nodes positive but not showing on ct. What made the cancer s spread so rapidly despite chemo. Did chemo made it worse. No answers though. We will be meeting a oncologist soon to decide on further chemo, rad... Hope
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  • BothSidesNow
    BothSidesNow Member Posts: 1
    edited August 2015

    Mawerickin, I am so sorry that your mom, you, and your family are going through this. This is my first post and I just had to jump in and extend some ((hugs)). I am just a couple years older than your mom and I know how difficult my diagnosis has been on my entire family, especially my daughter.

    Your post is appearing in the DCIS section and I hope someone with more knowledge will move it to a different section so that you can get the replies you need. The DCIS section is for early stage (0) cancers and your mom's seems to have progressed beyond that.

    However, I couldn't help noticing that you indicated your Mom's cancer was triple positive. I don't see in her treatment plan where she was given HERCEPTIN which would have blocked the aggressive HER2 receptors if she was indeed HER2 positive. Do you know any more about this?

    Sending you many hugs! Be assured you will find many supportive and knowledgable women on this site. So sorry that you are having to join us!



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