Hello

Thank you for getting in touch with us.  Some research has suggested that there might be a slight reduction in benefit for women who needed to wait longer than 30 days for chemotherapy to start following their surgery for breast cancer.  It seemed that the impact was seen a little more strongly in women who had a triple negative breast cancer (one that would not be sensitive to hormone treatments or the drug herceptin).

This does not mean that women who wait longer than 30 days will have no benefit from chemotherapy, it means that the benefit might be a little less.

Probably the best thing to do would be to discuss this with your specialist.  They will be able to give you an idea of how much in your circumstances chemotherapy is likely to reduce the chances of you having a recurrence of the breast cancer at a later date.  From this, in discussion with your specialist, you can work out whether any slight reduction in benefit due to a delay is likely to be significant for you.

It is worth noting that the studies that were done were not detailed enough to look precisely at the impact a few days delay might make, the main message from these studies is that it is better to try not to delay giving chemotherapy for too long for it to have the greatest benefit.

I hope that is helpful

Martin