Hw bad is this path report after neo adj chemo?

formygirls · July 2008

I just had a mast with AND last week after completing neo adj chemo 4 AC and 4 Taxol. That path report showed 2/29 were still postive with 3mm of cancer. I see my onc next week. I was supposed to start rads next month but now I am wondering if I need more chemo. Am really bummed that 2 nodes still have cancer. My MRI before chemo had shown multiple nodes (did not say how many but the largest one was 1.2 cms) so I did have some response to chemo. Before chemo, my invasive tumor(7 cms) had been removed. So it was not true neo adj for the tumor in the breast but my nodes were not touched. This path report did not show any invasive cancer in the breast but only 4mm of DCIS.

What are your thoughts on if more chemo is needed?

Thanks.

roseg · July 2008

Just as a flier I think they'll recommend it because you are triple negative.

JanClare · July 2008

I also had 4 AC and 4 Taxol before having my bilateral. Before the chemo, they felt that about 9-11 nodes were involved, so when I had 4 positive nodes out of 17, I was thrilled!! It meant that the chemo had been working!. One node was completely tumor, but had shrunk from golf ball size to normal size during the chemo. That's just about as good as it gets. I can't tell you about my primary because they never found mine (it's called an occult/ hidden primary).

So I would say that if you had response to the chemo, that's the important part. After all, if you had chemo before having the primary removed, would you have expected the tumor to disappear totally??

I think it's unlikely that you will get any further chemo at this point- what you had was the standard and it did give you a positive response. That means it hopefully worked at a cell level through the rest of your body. The rads are suppose to complete the localized treatment.

formygirls · July 2008

Thanks ladies.

Hw bad is this path report after neo adj chemo?

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