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breast cancer therapy experiences

dianevictoria
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 Hello, 

 I am not a cancer patient myself, but I would like to ask some women who went through breast cancer something about their treatment. 

 My mom's been diagnosed with stage 1B breast cancer back in August. She's postmenopausal woman and her breast cancer is 100% estrogen positive (and 50% progesterone). She's been getting aromatase inhibitors and I have a question - is this therapy effective even though her hormonal imbalance is most likely cause by her adrenal glands and not ovaries? (The doctors told her that). 

 Also her tumors were small, but the cancer was multicentric - the doctors decided they won't do radiation therapy, because it might damage her heart (but there was a lot of thought put into this). Is this decision smart? I really don't want her cancer to recur since everyone's saying this stage is very treatable. 

 Thank you! 

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    Hi Dianevictoria,

    I am so sorry to hear about your mum's diagnosis and understand your concerns. Fortunately, her cancer has been caught at an early stage, as was mine. I thought that you might find it helpful to hear about my experience as a result. I had grade 1, Pure Mucinous Breast Cancer.

    I initially had a lumpectomy followed by Tamoxifen treatment, but discovered a second lump 1 year after the initial diagnosis. This was a grade 1 primary cancer of the same type and grade, although I suspect that it may have happened because a clear margin was not achieved after my initial surgery. At the time my surgeon assured me that he was aware of this at the time and had taken a further margin of tissue to ensure that he had achieved this. I then had a double mastectomy and changed to Letrozole. 

    I did not have radiotherapy or chemotherapy, but have led a fulfilling life for the past 11 years despite this. Do you know what type of breast cancer your mum has, as I expect that this will be the key to how she gets on from here? 

    This stage is certainly treatable, but the type of cancer she has will be key to how this all pans out.

    Kind regards,

    Jolamine xx

    Kind regards,

    Jolamine xx

  • Offline in reply to Jolamine

     Thank you for your answer, I am so glad things turned out well for you! 

     My mom has invasive ductal carcinoma (and ductal carcinoma in situ), grade 2 (mitotic rate 1), HER-2 negative, hormone positive (as I mentioned in my previous post). Based on pathology results I think her margins were clean, 3 lymph nodes were examined and one had a single micrometastasis in it, so they did Oncotype DX test - her score was 6, probability of distant metastases in 9 years was 11%. 

    I wish you all well and lots of health in years to come. :) 

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