Find myself in a bit of a quandary & would appreciate any thoughts. Had left sided lumpectomy on 25/5/2016. Margins & lymph node biopsies came back clear. Have been advised now to have 15 radiotherapy treatments & to take Tamoxifen for 5 years. No problem re Tamoxifen but I just feel that 15 sessions is rather excessive. Oncologist ( very nice & explained everything) quoted 1-2% chance of recurrence with Radiotherapy and 4-6% without. The pros seemed to outnumber the cons, in my humble opinion. Plus I am a smoker & there is a history of heart disease in my family. Any advice/thoughts/opinions would be great - thanks
Hi…i had similar reservations…my onco said 4-6% chance recurrance with or 6-10% without…i had clear margins too,HER2 and ER+ and good response to neo adjuvant chemo, mammoplasty, but 8 month delay between surgery and Rads and only 9 Herceptin injs due to issues. My onco said all were guestimates as no real upto date studies to give exact %age benefits.
My surgeon was really keen…“if was me i would have it”…as i initially refused radiotherapy…to me negatives effects out weighed the benefits, but after further reflection i came to conclusion that i had to be comfy in my own head id done everything possible to prevent recurrence.
Its all belt and braces approach and no matter what we decide rest assured you’ll be monitorred closely.
Wish you luck going forward and peace of mind with your decisions, whatever you choose.
Hi Jo, I’m in very similar situation. Cancer was removed with clear margins, no node involvement, was stage 1 and and only 5 mm in size.
I have been told to have 15 sessions of rads (originally they said 20 but have reduced it). The oncologist told me that having the rads would reduce the chance of reoccurrence by 70%. I think that’s very good odds. So I’m going for it (in fact going this morning for the scan a positioning pre rads). I think it’s worth doing anything available to reduce the chance of it coming back. And also IF it did come back I might not be so lucky. It was found at early stage simply because I went for a routine mammagram…but what if it came back a couple of years before mammagram was due? It would have been found at later stage and maybe a big problem.
Re smoking…this is said without and judgment at all as I was a smoker for more than 40 years…but 18 months ago I started using an e-cigarette and have not looked back. I gave up smoking in 2 days. Amazing as I had tried to give up countless times before.
Hope rads go well for you if you decide to go for it,
I don’t understand these odds. I had a grade one er8/pr8 is and Onc told me, without radiotherapy, I had a 25% chance of recurrence. So I had it. 15 sessions. I’m assuming with Anastrozole odds are now 3%. We seem to all be told different things but I suppose it depends on grade, size and receptors?
Hi Lorac i fully understand why you are dithering, as I HATED the thought of radiotherapy & had to force myself to override all intuition to get on that table & go through with it. I would base it on whether you are a high grade, HER+ & what your ki67 is (if they have told you). All those factors make recurrence more likely. I agree with Ces that I can’t see why we all have such dramatically different odds. If yours are genuinely that low, I don’t think I would have bothered. Rights & wrongs of smoking aside, there is strong evidence that you need to stop for the 3 weeks of treatment. There is evidence that smoking during treatment increases the risk of complications, in particular lung cancer. Don’t want to scare you, but they should tell u that anyway. It is only relevant if you smoke during radiotherapy, not before or after, so don’t worry about the smoking you’ve already done or will do in future, other than in the normal way of knowing it’s not the greatest thing for us. xx
Hi all, this is all very confusing! How are you all getting on? Mine is due to start on 9th July and I feel no clearer in my head about it. I was told 20% risk of recurrence without rads and 1-2% if I have it. I don’t know what that’s based on and can’t find any statistics to back it up. My tumour was 17mm grade 1, ER8 and no node involvement. The next Predict version will include radiotherapy apparently but not in time for us!
Hello Chick1, thank you so much for this, I really appreciate all your comments. I’m going with it although still hate the idea. Scared if you do and scared if you don’t is right! In your shoes I would have done the same. In mine… feel like taking them off and running barefoot to the hills! In reality, the scan was delayed due to a mix up so I gained some more thinking time and today am just heading off for the planning scan. The risk of recurrence in the bone in invasive types won out. How are you doing? How are your lungs? Thinking of you xxx
Hi Jobey68, thanks for taking the time to reply and good to know that most have left the forum and are doing ok. I’m glad it all went well for you but sorry to hear about the Tamoxifen xx