Stage III Cancer Survivors ...Five + Years and Out.
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Does anyone else notice the Stage III survivors 10 years and out and 15 years and out have fewer and fewer posts? Frightening but funny in a way, too.
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Waronbreastcancer
I disagree and my (Professor) of Oncology was quite clear about my future risk. But as this thread is about HOPE i will not continue along these lines and will add that I am 5 years NED today!
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wow this makes me so happy to hear this, as I am 25 and was recently diagnosed with TNBC stage 3b. I am going through chemo at the moment and finding it really tough.
My one worry was that me and my wonderful partner (future husband) would not be able to have children after this, and this is giving me hope that perhaps we can go on to lead a normal family life.
So glad that she is doing well
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My oncologist is also a professor and one of the best oncologist when it comes tobreast cancer in the country (Denmark) and he supports my statement.I would like to see an academic article that supports your assumption. After all it's not about beliefs of diasagreement but statistics. Anyway congratulations on the fifth year!
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Jessicat, welcome to Breastcancer.org!
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There are some other forums you may want to check out, while you're looking around
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--The Mods
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Wintersocks, Waronbreastcancer I believe you may both be right! My Onc described it this way - talking about ER+ IDC, highest risk if you look at graph is years 2-4 after surgery. Risk falls 'slightly' from year 5 and declines 'very gradually' after that. So the risk is higgest early - but we remain at risk, and even though it declines it is relatively high at 10 years - relative say to a TN or IBC patient whose risk peaks very high early but then crosses our graph and is lower at 10 years. So we are at RELATIVELY high risk at 10 and 20 years - nonetheless this is much lower than our starting stats. You could be talking about the same number - say 7% and describing it as high or low risk - depends what you're comparing to. I read a paper on this very recently - I believe the residual risk at 10 years was considerably less than 10%. It is also very dependent on your oncs assessment of your tumour type - grade, Ki67, spread etc all inform their undoubtedly expert sense of where you personally might sit in the myriad of possible patterns this disease can take. A stage 3 DX could look to them aggressive (likely to reoccur early) or slow growing - higher risk later. Praying we all of us buck the numbers.
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That is exactly my point - the risk for recurrence never drops to zero, but it's definitely not as high 20 years post dx as the first years.
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Thanks for weighing in, everyone. I was pretty unhappy to see a couple sources suggest that ultimately, over 90 percent of stage 3's recur...this is not at all what I understood from my people here! With this above statistic, why not call us stage 4 off the bat??? Anyways, I appreciate your feedback...
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Poseygirl, I've never read that over 90 percent of stage 3's recur.
Not mentioned much is the level of treatment given following diagnosis. For sure Stage 3s are nearly always given tri-modal treatment, But, I'm surprised how minimal treatment is for some Stage 1 people; often just a lumpectomy and perhaps rads, but very often no chemo. Now, I'm sure this is current protocol, but late recurrences in these cases may be explained by this.
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Traveltext, yes, unfortunately there are a few sources that cite some dismal numbers. I decided recently that I need to stop statistic hunting
.I have seen what you refer to re: lesser treatment for stage 1. And I personally believe that they should throw the book at anything past DCIS...invasive is invasive. But I'm no medical guru, so what do I know
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Ninety percent! Well, maybe in 1950. Not today.
I'm friends with a lot of Stage 3-ers who are doing fine. It can't be that I selectively know the 10% of us who are NED.
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Sbelizabeth, I was thinking that too. I think this breast cancer expert said this since 2000! I was sitting there thinking this couldn't be true, but it was jarring. It is nice to hear you know several doing well. I had a friend recur at 2.5 years, which affected me a great deal. I run a local FB group for bc ladies (32 of us now), but most In the group are in treatment or within two years out. I think a few are three or more years out that are stage three. So it's hard to get that real life extended view as I'm sure many of these people don't want to be in a group talking about it...
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PoseyGirl, there are so many variables to consider even within the "Stage III" classification. Hormone receptor status, HER-2, lymphatic invasion, node status, treatment... Any statistic that claims 90% of ALL Stage III will recur is wrong.
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hi everyone. I'm a newly diagnosed 3A. Your stories give me so much hope. Thank you for sharing the
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Is there any of you that is Estrogenpositive, progesteroneNEGATIVE and still get tamoxifen? I heard that tamoxifen do not work without progesteronereceptors... Confused!!! And scared. Cry everyday ... My oncologis do not explain anything...
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Hi, Anna in Norway. And welcome.
Please begin a new thread and ask your question again. I think your question is deserving of its own discussion.
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Welcome Anna-in-Norway.
You have ER+/PR+ in your signature. Are you saying you are PR-?
And what is your HER2 status?
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Yes... they first thought I was Progesterone positive, but that was fail.. I am only Estrogene positive.
Her 2 negative.
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OK, then best change your signature to ER+/PR- HER2+
Then you could post the question here: https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/78
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Hi Anna, it is my understanding that Tamoxifen works if you have positivity with either hormone. I am very weakly PR positive, and I was given Tamoxifen. But then I had my ovaries out and went on an AI. May I ask how old you are?
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I am 32...
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ok, so doctors may not wish to take your ovaries out and put you on an AI versus Tamoxifen (AI's inhibit estrogen production in post menopausal women) since you're so young. So you'd be on Tamoxifen and I'm fairly certain that's the case for single hormone expression? I do know they are studying the effects of PR alongside ER expression and how that affects response. But I haven't come across Tamoxifen being only for dual hormone expression. But maybe I am wrong on that
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Thank you for answearing!
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thanks for this thread! It gives me some hope.
Im 29 and just had a single mastectomy last friday. I had my postop appointment today, and found out I am stage 3A, and my tumor was 8cm! holy cow. I also had my nodes checked. He took out the sentinel node- plus 4 additional ones, and only the sentinel node was affected.
Im pretty stressed as you all can imagine.
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when I was newly diagnosed this thread gave me so much hope and I promised if I made it to my 5 year cancerversary. I would revisit and post my survival. I was DX after the birth of our 3rd baby and found the lump while nursing him... of course I assumed the lump was from a clogged milk duct... that assumption got me a TN stage 3 DX... after chemo. DMX. More chemo. Radiation. Genetic testing. Oophorectomy. Reconstruction. Countless scans. I am cancer free! A lot of worries in between...my youngest is now 6. My beautiful daughter is now 8 and my oldest son is turning 16! Life is always full of surprises but the biggest surprise is im here to love and enjoy my husband and children. Forward. Onward. Outward
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Congratulations Cpacino. As a TN, you are indeed doing very well and I wish you all the best for the next five years.
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Hi there. I just want to point out that there is indeed evidence that tamoxifen is less effective than aromatase inhibitors (such as letrozole or anastrazole) for ER+ PR- BC. An entryway into the literature is provided here:
"Insights into the role of progesterone receptors in breast cancer," Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2005 vol. 23 pp. 931-932.
Authors: S. Fuqua, Y. Cui, A. Lee, C. Osborne, and K. Horwitz.
doi: 10.1200/JCO.2005.05.152
The most relevant part is quoted below.
..."First, when accurately measured, PR status is an independent predictive factor for benefit from adjuvant endocrine therapy with tamoxifen.[4] In (a certain) study, approximately 30% of patients were biochemically ER+/PR− and responded poorly to tamoxifen; this is not a trivial percentage of patients in the context of cost-effectiveness. Although the molecular mechanisms associated with the resistant phenotype of ER+/PR− patients have yet to be elucidated, it has been suggested that low PR may reflect enhanced growth factor signaling and enhanced tumor aggressiveness [5]—a hypothesis that can be readily tested. Second, are the recent provocative results from the Arimidex or Tamoxifen Alone or in Combination (ATAC) study showing only a modest advantage for anastrazole compared to tamoxifen in the ER+/PR+ group, while there was a major benefit for anastrazole in the ER+/PR− subgroup.[6,7] Although this study is undoubtedly preliminary and awaits confirmation, it did involve thousands of patients and supports the data from Bardou et al.[4]"
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It feels like, since I am progesterone negativ, and do not get aromataseinhibitators, only tamoxifen (which probably do not work) I do not have any chance of surviving this.. Asyou see under I had a lot of positive lymphs. Feeling so scared and alone. I have small children, that need their mum...
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Anna, can you let us know what treatment you had?
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