Hi there
Hoping you can give me some advice with different information I’m getting and reading.
In May this year I was diagnosed with a left side 40mm grade 3 invasive duct carcinoma ER/PR 7 positive, HER2 negative close to skin and chest wall with node involvement under left arm I also had a Ki-67 of 23%
My treatment plan was 4 cycles of EC followed by 4 cycles of Docetaxel. Then a mastectomy, as the tumour is close to the nipple, full node clearance, then radiotherapy. After the EC, I had an MRI and it showed a partial response of the tumour going from 40mm to 30mm. I am due my last cycle next week and having had 3 cycles of Docetaxel the tumour feels like it hasn’t shrunk any more and on seeing the Consultant yesterday she could still feel the tumour and said feels about 30mm, so don’t think I’ve had a good response to this chemo.
Anyway, I was asking her about wanting radiotherapy after surgery as it was mentioned at my first consultation as I have a large tumour, near the chest wall with node involvement and she said it may not be needed as I’m having a mastectomy, the tumour is not considered large (50mm she said is large) and on removing the lymph nodes after surgery if they are clear of cancer cells radiotherapy may not be needed. But my understanding was that whether or not the lymph nodes are clear after surgery due to them having cancer cells before, radiotherapy would still be the next stage. And i was also thinking radiotherapy is used to kill any other remaining cells after surgery because they may/may not get all cancer cells with the mastectomy. So what is standard practice, at the very least?
Many thanks