Strong ER/PR positive, no pCR.

Understand that everything I'm about to tell you is from extensive research on this board and from going through the motions recently. Achievement of a pCR based on your numbers and markers according to my wife's oncologist only happens about 5% of the time. This seems to be fairly normal. The only things that may be of concern based on the little I can tell is your age, grade and nodal involvement. Even that at this point is not of huge concern. Remember more people in your situation make it through this than don't. Take a deep breath. It will get easier. You will have other concerns as you go along with each part of the course and there will be fear but you'll get through it because you're strong. It will be a rough year, but you'll do it. The heads up right now that I can give you is to talk to your oncologist about clinical trials and possibly a tumor board evaluation, everything else should be pretty straight forward based on what you know so far. If you have questions don't ever be afraid to ask. There are a lot of great people here.

Hi Steph, I'm in the same boat...I think we've chatted a little on the other thread. I went to 5 oncologists, and no one recommended more chemo for me, but it's certainly worth asking about (e.g. Xeloda, as sbelizabeth mentioned). You have a lot of favorable things going for you: your strong ER/PR positivity and low Ki67 appears to put you in the Luminal A category; Luminal As don't generally have a great response to chemo, but they have an excellent response to anti-hormonals, so I really think you're in good shape! And it's actually great that you're even seeing some response!! Hang in there. I completely understand your worry and disappointment.

Steph--oh you're so welcome! I know how hard all of this is. I'm still struggling myself. Is your surgery scheduled yet?

I am also in the same boat here. My tumor did not shrink one bit during chemo but turned out to have shrunk from 6,5 x 4 cm to 2,5 x 2 cm after operation, the rest was scar tissue...Clean margins, but I am also very concerned of my high numbers. My Ki65 was 30% but then went down to 6% after pathology report was done. I am done with my radiation, doing scans for bones, lungs but for some reason not the brain, which I intend to ask for as well. I have no clue what all this really means anymore, just holding on to hope at this point, hoping for the best. Not sure about my grade either at this point, read that if the tumor size was as big as mine it should be grade 3 but for some reason I was told early on it was grade 2. Any clarification appreciated from the board.