When is grade 3 most likely to return Er6

Hi Nanc,

I'm not sure that all grade 3 BC has a higher rate of early recurrence. I think the type of cancer and the involvement of the cancer have a bigger impact. What I have read is triple negative tends to reoccur ealier than say ER+Her-.

I have read that it's the hormonal status that tends to affect recurrence timing, with triple neg tending to recur (if it will) early within 3 years, whereas ER+ can recur anytime even 10 years and beyond.

Try to hang on to the fact that most will NOT recur & perhaps if you're looking for concrete things you can do, consider this study about lifestyle modifications & their effect on recurrence rates. http://www.cmaj.ca/content/189/7/E268

"Physical activity can reduce breast cancer mortality by about 40% and has the most powerful effect of any lifestyle factor on breast cancer outcomes.

• At least 150 minutes per week of physical activity is recommended"
  
  Another study found that runners did better than walkers - ie it seemed the heavier cardio workouts had better impact. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ij...

Research seems to suggest markers such as obesity, genetics, lack of exercise, too much liquor, when period started and ended, play some role in triggering cancer. I have no markers, except a grandmother that died of breast cancer. She had many of those markers. Something rarely discussed as a potential cause of triggering cancer is stress. Each time I have gotten cancer, the previous year has just been awful. It caused lack of sleep, depression, because I could not fix what went wrong. I felt helpless and emotionally tapped out.

Hi Manc,


I can so relate to the worry that you are feeling. I was diagnosed with Grade 3 IDC, ER+ (Allred Score 5) and LVI back in July 2016. From what I have read so far in the medical journals, If they are going to recur, Grade 3 tumours tend to recur within the first 8 years. There seems to be a peak around year 3 but for those who do have a recurrence 95% will do so within the first 5 years. There is so much information out there it's hard not to get bogged down with all the stats. I've also seen plenty ladies on here who were diagnosed with ER+, Grade 3 and are still going strong 12 years on without a recurrence.


Take Care


Emma x

TWills - I think people thought that after you made it with 5 yrs of endocrine therapy your risks went down but this new research published in Nov 2017 showed that for ER+ cancer "After 5 years of adjuvant endocrine therapy, breast-cancer recurrences continued to occur steadily throughout the study period from 5 to 20 years"

They are trying to figure out whether extending endocrine therapy would help but in order to know that, they needed to know what the actual risks after 5 years were - & hence this study which showed that the risk persists steadily & that the risk seems more correlated to original status than to how many years had passed.

That was the research linked in the first tweet: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa170183...