Non response to chemo plus vascular invasion

Going through breast cancer treatment Surgery
1

Hi all,

I was diagnosed with triple positive breast cancer in November and started Neo adjuvant chemo in December. That’s all done now and I had a lumpectomy a few weeks ago and got my results Tuesday. Apparently, despite scans and the feel of my tumour changing I got a rare non-response. The tumour was larger than thought and 3 lymph nodes were involved. They also said I had vascular invasion and now I need a full body PET scan.

I’m going out of my mind worrying about this being stage 4 and can’t think of anything else. 

has anyone else been in the same position?

thanks

H

2

H Please use the number on here and speak to a nurse if you can You will be able to get some guidance from them as they have see every scenario before Sending :two_hearts: :two_hearts: :sparkles: :sparkles: Shi xx

3

Hello,

I was diagnosed at the same time, also triple positive but had some evidence in lymph nodes too. I also had chemo from December onwards like you. After my lumpectomy and full lymph node clearance (early May) the margins weren’t clear so they went in again. Still weren’t clear so I’m having a 3rd local wide excision sometime soon. 

The pathology on my first surgery showed only a partial response to the chemo. It also showed I’d gone from HER2+ (borderline) to HER2 - so that’s maybe why it didn’t react as well as hoped. The second surgery results showed evidence of vascular invasion. 

I don’t have any useful advice or much more experience otherwise, but wanted to message back as I’m in a similar situation I suppose! I definitely find it a bit worrying. 

I hope you have had some clarification / progress since your post. Xxx