Triple Negative, Stage 1 Thinking NO CHEMO

dono7392, this is what I said: "IDC tumor 1.5 cm and DCIS spread 2.9 cm." Yes, the DCIS was about twice the size as the IDC. The prescription for chemo was based on the IDC.

My understanding is that for any triple negative greater than .5cm, the standard of care is to recommend chemo, so yours definitely falls into that range.

If you've read up on TNBC, you've seen that it can be very aggressive. Your own diagnosis of grade 3 is an indicator that yours likely is, too. Your notes don't say if you've had surgery yet or if you did, what kind. Either way, surgery (and follow-up radiation, if you have a lumpectomy) is used to address cancer cells in the breast. Chemo is used to address cells that may have migrated to other parts of your body. Likely you already know all this, and I don't mean to insult you by explaining. But because the TNBC is aggressive, chemo is the best way to reduce your risk of recurrence, either locally in the breast or elsewhere. You won't get another chance to hit it this hard.

We all would have loved to avoid chemo. Though my own doctor was not insistent for me to do so, if you polled almost any other TNBC patient, they would say theirs was!

Good luck with the process and decision-making. There is a lot of help here for you to access, and a lot of support as you go through.

Dear GailKS,

Welcome to the BCO community. We are sorry for your cancer. We are glad that you reached out to our members to share your story. We hope that you will find support and information here that will help you along the way. We wish you the best as your chemo starts. Keep us all posted on how things go and let us know if we can be a help in any way.

The Mods