Just read in today’s Daily Express:
“For most cancers, if you are disease-free after five years, it’s a pretty good indicator that you are cured. That is not the case for oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer. The sure thing is that the recurrence rate means that you can’t say you’re cured. There has to be continued vigilence for many years”.
This was a comment by Professor Jack Cuzick, Cancer Research UK, epidemiologist.
So, as allegedly 80% of us are oestrogen +; that is bad news.
Yeah it really sucks doesn’t it, not only to go through this but to know you are never really in the clear. heyho.
A combination of “Just keep taking the tablets” and “what they don’t tell you”, I suppose.
I will most certainly mention (and discuss)this article at my next appointment at the end of this month.
This is why it is so frustrating when you read articles talking about women being given the all clear for breast cancer (there was one in The Times yesterday about Maggie Smith - she was quoted as saying she had been given the all clear). This is complete rubbish for most of us, as it can come back many years later. Yet most of the population (and hence our family & friends) think we are OK if we reach five years. Anyone who is knowledgable about breast cancer will know this is not the case.
Yes, I do agree, Road Runner (I saw the Maggie Smith article, too)
That phrase, the ‘all-clear’ is a pet hate of mine. It a piece of journalese, not a medical term.
I think they can only say, retrospectively, that you were (not are) cured of cancer if you live to a great age and then die of something completely different.
There is nothing black and white about cancer. There is nothing magic about 5 years. But no-one wants to know about the subleties and fickleness of this disease; they want happy endings or valiant last stands and they most certainly don’t want to know about the messy bits in between.
X to all
S