Regrowth / mixed chemo response

Going through breast cancer treatment Chemotherapy
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I wondered if anyone had experienced something similar.

I initially responded well to chemo and my 30mmx20mm tumour and two lymph nodes shrank by 50% after two rounds of EC. Unfortunately somewhere between this and round five (one more round of EC and two of docetaxel) the tumour stopped reacting and showed on the ultrasound as having grown back to bigger than it was at diagnosis. I actually reported that I felt the tumour was growing and it was painful a few times but kept being told it was treatment related and not to worry, until they finally scanned me and realised it had grown quite a bit. The lymph nodes still appeared to be shrinking on the scan.

I had my last chemo cancelled and had a lumpectomy and node clearance done early. The surgeon said the mass removed was bigger than they expected, attached to muscle and also she’d removed ‘several fibrous / enlarged nodes’ (only two showed up on the scan).

I’m still waiting for the pathology but I wondered if anyone had had a similar pattern and what the outcome was. Obviously worse case is that the tumour was all active cancer. I’m not sure if it’s possible that some of it could still be dead cells even though it regrew quite aggressively?

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Hi @lucyblue I had chemotherapy first as well. I had a 4cm breastlump and a 5cm axillary lymph node with 2 other nodes that looked dodgy on CT scan. I had 3 x EC and then 3 x doxycycline. The lymph node shrank down to about 1.5cms but there was no response to the breast lump, though it didnt grow any more. I had a lumpectomy and full axillary clearance- 8 nodes taken and 1 positive that we already knew about. They said the 2 dodgy looking ones could have been an inflammatory/fibrotic response to the large lymph node. I had radiotherapy. My first year mammogram was clear and a recentbone scan showed no metastasies so all seems to be ticking along OK :crossed_fingers:t3:

I hopeall goes well for you x

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Hi Pat, thank you so much for the response - sounds very similar to my situation. It’s so nerve wracking waiting to find out more info. I’m glad to hear your recent scans came back clear.