Questioning Oncologist treatment plan

You can put your stats into the probability calculators and see what the predictions are regarding each treatment. Your oncologist should also be able to give you her numbers and you can compare.

The larger the tumor, statistically the higher the risk of recurrence.


http://www.lifemath.net/cancer/breastcancer/therap...

http://www.predict.nhs.uk/predict_v2.1/tool

Deamo - the decision is yours. It’s your body, your life. My sister had a MX and had the Incotyoe test done. Her score was intermediate. Her MO put her on Arimidex.

It’s interesting they are concerned with the cost of Mammaprint. Personally I have no idea what it costs because I had the Oncotype test. It was $5k 7 years ago. Our insurance paid for it. Have no clue what it costs now but I would have still done it because I dodged chemo because of a low score. My score was 11.

Do you have health insurance? I know Genomic Labs who perform the Oncotype tests will work with you if insurance doesn’t pay for it or you don’t have insurance at all.

You can push to have either Mammaprint or the Oncotype test done. I would if I were you.

Diane

Deamo, the size of tumor was determined after a mastectomy? What funny that my mammogram and mri detected 5 cm tumor, but after surgery path test come back it was scattered 9 mm, 5 mm, 3 mm small tiny ones. That all.

Doing or not doing chemo depend on your age the younger you are more likely to have it. I m 41 and no history of bc, genetic test was negative.

Maybe they want a short course chemo?

And anyone can explain what is mammaprint? Thsnk you

Mammaprint & Oncotype are both genomic tests that analyze the tumor and try to predict the risk of the cancer recurring or spreading.

The Oncotype DX test gives a numeric recurrence score. Mammaprint is a similar test but only gives a binary result - likely to recur or not likely to recur.

The recent TailorX study results showed that for women with low and some women with intermediate scores, the risks of chemo are outweighing the benefits.

Every treatment has its risk / benefit profile. People with low Oncotype DX scores can and do have cancer recurrences - it's just that their odds of it happening are lower.