blood test monitoring after treatment -

Interesting. I get NO blood tests after BC at Dana Farber

I have had a Complete Blood Count, Complete Metabolic Panel, CA27/29 tumor markers, CEA tumor marker, and Vitamin D at every oncology visit and I am 8 years out from diagnosis. I am treated at the largest private oncology group in the country, and this is part of their protocol for all patients. It is very common not to do all of this blood testing, particularly if your primary care does it routinely. My tumor markers have occasionally climbed out of the normal range on the CA27/29 due to inflammation, and conversely there are stage IV patients for whom tumor marker blood tests do not show an increase even in the face of progression - the tests are not reliable for all patients and this is why many oncologists do not use them. This is why they are not done as part of any kind of preventive testing like screening mammograms to try to detect disease before symptoms.

I never had tumor marker tests. My MO didn’t believe in them because she said too many false positives. I’m sure the fact I was early stage 1b, Grade 1 IDC was another reason. My tumor was not aggressive and I had a low Oncotype score of 11. Small tumor as well. Micromet in SN but didn’t test other nodes because she said it wasn’t necessary. So basically all she ran blood tests for for is to see the effects of Tamoxifen which I took for 5 years.

Several ladies in my support group at church did have routine blood tests. One had the tumor marker test which unfortunately showed after several tests her BC had metastasized to her hip. From what I understand the numbers can and do elevate for other than metastasis thus running the test several times. This lady had the test rerun two weeks after the first one.

I put my faith, and my life for that matter, in my MO. She determined tests and treatments. So far, so good 7 years out last August.

Diane

Hope it's ok to jump into this thread. I am reliant on my GP for follow up blood work, which unfortunately with him, is not consistent. I saw him this past week for all of a minute (which is about all I usually get with him) simply to get my bloodwork script. While he's checking it off he starts talking to me about tumor markers etc, and I said no I don't get those done. Not until I got home with my script, did I notice all these extra tests that he just lumped in there, that were not asked for, and not part of my routine screening (compared with last year). 9 extra. I have not met with him to put forth any symptoms or asked for any additional tests. I usually see this guy a couple of times a year for a minute or two while he rewrites my prescriptions. That's it.

I have never, for example, been given a GAMMA GT test. I've read up on this one in particular and it seems rife with false positives and seems to be screening for stuff that I've not presented with. Of course now I'm terrified, and won't go get my blood work. Looks like he's testing me for gout too... I'm surprised there's not a pregnancy test on there. Last year I had a CBC, Lipid panel, glucose, lytes, AST/ALT and a couple of other things. I was told by the nurse who reviewed it with me, that it was excellent.

Is this routine for others? I'm considering going back with the script and asking him to re-do it.