TN stage one lobular with no spread to lymph nodes; Chemo?
Oncologist is recommending CMF. My androgen receptor test was positive and I am trying to make a decision about chemo. Anyone able to share side effects experience?
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Hi @eftgreene and thanks for sharing your experience, and we're sorry you find yourself here. We know that chemo is not something people want to have to go through.
Here are a few pages about Triple negative bc:Because the cancer cells don't have estrogen or progesterone receptors, and also makes too little or none of the HER2 protein, hormone therapy and drugs that target HER2 are not helpful, so chemotherapy (chemo) is the main systemic treatment option.
You may also want to eventually talk with your treatment team about immunotherapy.
However, you may feel more comfortable with this decision if you went and got a second opinion. This can be very helpful in this phase of decision-making.
This excerpt is taken out of the Mayo Clinic blog posted above.
How is triple-negative breast cancer treated?Dr. Leon Ferre says that for some types of breast cancer, chemotherapy is used after surgery and sometimes not at all. This is not the case for triple-negative breast cancer. "The vast majority of women with this diagnosis will need chemotherapy, and we almost always treat with chemotherapy before surgery," he says.
With other breast cancers, chemotherapy is given after surgery to kill any cancer cells that may have spread beyond the breast.
"Triple-negative breast cancer tends to spread at a microscopic level from the beginning," says Dr. Leon Ferre. This means the cancer must be treated with systemic therapy — a drug or combination of drugs that can be taken orally or through an IV to reach cancer cells in all parts of the body. "The drugs usually used to avoid chemotherapy target estrogen receptors. This cancer doesn't have those, so we rely on chemotherapy, which essentially kills any cell that is dividing rapidly," he says.
Another systemic therapy used to treat triple-negative breast cancer is immunotherapy, drugs that help your immune system identify and kill cancer cells. "At this time, it's the only type of breast cancer for which we use immunotherapy. Of all breast cancer subtypes, it's the one that's better able to alert the immune system to its presence. We can take advantage of that and use medications to activate the immune system further to attack the cancer," says Dr. Leon Ferre.
Here is a good page on the potential side effects, but please remember, each person responds completely differently!
We're all here for you , and let us know what you decided!
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