Had triple positive cancer 6 years ago. Did everything - neo adjuvant chemo, surgery, radiotherapy, chemo again, tamoxifen. It came back almost the same but HER2- rather than +. So mastectomy with reconstruction.
Now being told I need TC followed by Letrozole plus Zolodex.
If this is preventative, rather than active disease, then am I being hurried to start chemo for timeline/targets rather than lessened effectiveness? I’m not fully healed from surgery and that will be impeded. Not to mention the side effects I suffered last time - and still live with consequences of - so I am hardly going to avoid this round.
I always find it strange when adjuvant chemo is referred to as “preventative” as we know this chemo actually works by killing any cancer cells that may be present in the body but are undetectable. From my point of view this would still make it curative even if no active disease is confirmed and that is certainly the check box that was ticked on my own adjuvant chemo consent form.
Is it worth it? My experience says yes. I had a significant wait for adjuvant chemo to start after a successful removal of a stage 1, grade 3 TNBC tumour with no node involvement and my cancer was confirmed as having locally returned in that time at a higher stage, which has now changed the course of my treatment to neo-adjuvant with further surgery and treatment to follow.
Whether or not you go for the treatment is of course completely your choice based on your own circumstances and I hope you’re able to make an informed decision that feels right for you. x
Hi there. Yes, my oncologist said the same thing to me. I had a second breast cancer diagnosis in November found on a CT scan. It was a very small 7mm tnbc. Because of the size and no node involvement he said the chemo was purely preventative, whatever that means. That appears to be the option they choose to describe small tumour treatment, but having survived a first triple negative breast cancer 26 years ago, I wanted as much chemo as possible.