Pregnant with cancer.. chemo or no?

Hello. I am 39 years old and I was diagnosed with stage 1/2 invasive ductal carcinoma in my first trimester.  Had single mastectomy last month in second trimester.  I’m am HR + HER2-, tumor was 22 mm, grade 2.  Lymph nodes were negative, margins around tumor clean. My oncotype score came back 29.  Odds of reoccurrence with just hormone therapy alone is 18%… if I add chemo ( which they are recommending) would give me a 15% benefit.  If I understand that correctly the difference between the two would be about 3%.  I’m struggling with what to do. Is 3% worth it to go through chemo for the rest of my pregnancy?  Any advice please.  Thank you 

Hi @cb2022  - first of all, welcome to the forum and I’m sorry you haven’t had any replies yet to your posts. I’m also very sorry to read about your diagnosis, and especially the timing. 

I’m afraid I personally can’t answer your question, but I didn’t want to read your post and not comment. I think if I were in your position I would speak to your cancer team and your pregnancy team to see what they recommend. I would want to find out what risk there is to your baby, what risk there is if you wait until you have delivered your baby. I know medical teams often give us the option of what treatment to have, but we aren’t all medically trained and it’s impossible for us to make a decision. I know it’s a cliche, but try asking your teams what advice they would give to their wife/mother/daughter if they were in your situation.

Sending you hugs and strength, and please keep in touch and let us know what you decide to do, and how we can help you get through this. Evie xx

I am so sorry you are in this position. Thats a tough one. I think you also need to speak to your oncolgist and whoever is managing your pregnancy about the potential adverse effects on your baby plus the percentage benifits of chemo . Often the treatments are alyered up eg 15% reduction for op plus percentage rate reduction of occurrence if you have chemo. The NHS Predict for breast cancer may help you with this but you also need advice re chemo effects on your baby. Your obstetrician should be able to help you with this. Sending you hugs. Xx