My sister (40) has just been diagnosed with TNBC grade 3, breast lump 22mm and at least 2 axillary lymph nodes.
The plan is EC-T chemotherapy (3 cycles of each at 3 weekly intervals) then mastectomy and radiotherapy. She has had her first cycle. I have been reading about treatment and it seems adding carboplatin to the T, improves the rate of pathological clearance and therefore survival. I have asked the oncologist about this and he said there is no evidence for adding a platinum based chemo. In the UK ECT or equivalent FEC-T is the standard regime and apparently we have no alternative even if we get a second opinion or go private. They seem to add carboplatin to treatment abroad. Does anyone have any experience in this? Or any recommendations for a second opinion.
Thanks for any help/advice
Yes I noticed on the other sites they were all offered this and they seem to get so much more treatment than us I had Fec t for stage 3 triple neg 9 positive nodes im coming up to 2 year fec t is the gold standard treatment here in the uk good luck to your sister x
only just seen this post. I was diagnosed with TNBC on 15th July and had my first round of chemo a couple of weeks ago. My lump is quite large (41mm) although fortunately no node involvement and so the plan is for chemo first followed by surgery / radiotherapy. I’m having the 3 x EC that most ladies seem to get ( although not the F bit, not sure why) and then the T but with carboplatin as well. My oncologist said that this second bit was quite brutal but he felt that they should throw 'everything at it ’ - his words, not mine. I have just assumed that this is the normal approach but am surprised to read on here that’s not necessarily the case.
. Maybe it is to do with lump size etc but it’s obviously available on the nhs so might be worth asking your oncologist?