Recurrence after complete response

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BlueKoala
BlueKoala Member Posts: 190
edited April 2017 in Not Diagnosed With a Recurrence or Metastases but Concerned

I guess I am looking for some reassurance.

My doctors all say I have a good prognosis. Even better now that I had a complete response to chemo. My oncologist said she considers me 'theoretically cured'. I have had aggressive treatment, mostly because I am so young, and the tumour was large to start with.

But I am still terrified that the cancer is going to come back, that it is already back.

Is a recurrence after a complete response to chemo as uncommon as my medical team all tell me it is?

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  • gracie22
    gracie22 Member Posts: 229
    edited April 2017

    The attached article (not super recent--2014) indicates that complete response is more indicative of "event free survival" for those with high grade, hormone negative cancer. On the other hand, since complete response is relatively rare for those with ER/PR+, HER2- cancer, your response itself shows that your cancer is vulnerable to chemo. Do you know the grade of your cancer, and the percentage ER positive that you are? That seems to matter; some people tagged ER positive are technically positive, but may have a relatively low level of estrogen positive cells. In other words, being 1% ER positive, or 10 or 20% positive for estrogen is different than being 90% estrogen positive insofar as response and interpreting the meaning of complete response.

    http://www.ascopost.com/issues/october-15-2014/pathologic-complete-response-understanding-the-subtleties/

    here's another more recent study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4961053/

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  • BlueKoala
    BlueKoala Member Posts: 190
    edited April 2017

    My pathology report said >90%, strong staining, for both estrogen and progesterone. I don't know the grade, because according to my doctor 'almost all lobular cancer is grade 2, so we didn't test that'.

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