Chemo first... then do you have to??

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Mamatwoboys
Mamatwoboys Member Posts: 22
edited December 2017 in Chemotherapy - Before, During, and After

has anyone heard of chemo first, chemo beating the cancer... and then the person not going through with radiation and mastectomy???

Not saying I am not... asking.

Don’t feel I have all the information I need from my doctors, so I am doing research. I am only going into my third treatment, so it is awhile before anything.. they decided to attack first with chemo. If it works.. why go through with horrible radiation and surgeries??

Again... asking... I listen to my doctors.. just want to know what I am getting in to.

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  • ElaineTherese
    ElaineTherese Member Posts: 3,328
    edited December 2017

    Hi!

    I did chemo first, and it wiped out all of the active cancer in my breast and compromised lymph node. However, I still did surgery and radiation. I'm especially glad that I did the surgery because the surgeon found a tiny pocket of DCIS (non-invasive cancer) that didn't show up on the scans.

    Scans are imperfect, and even if you think you've had a pathological complete response (PCR) to chemo, the only way to confirm that is surgery and the surgical pathology. I have, however, seen some women opt out of radiation if they had a PCR and a mastectomy.

    Like you, I was Stage III, Grade 3 when I was diagnosed, though I was triple positive and not triple negative. Given that my cancer was aggressive and locally advanced, my doctors would have recommended radiation regardless of whether I did the lumpectomy or the mastectomy so I did the lumpectomy.

    Best wishes!

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  • NotVeryBrave
    NotVeryBrave Member Posts: 1,287
    edited December 2017

    That very thing was a consideration of mine when no cancer was seen by mammogram, US, and MRI following my six rounds of chemo. But as Elaine pointed out - the imaging is not always correct and you have to have a final pathology result that says pCR.

    As far as I've been able to tell, no research studies have been done to follow women with surgery vs those without. The recommendation seems to always be for surgery.


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