TC chemo 4 or 6 cycles??? How to choose?

Dear Guida,

Thank you for getting in touch with us, and welcome to our online community. My name is Annerose I’m one of the Cancer Information Nurses here at the Macmillan Cancer Support line.

I can see you have joined some of our online community groups and I hope you will find them supportive.

I am sorry to hear about your local recurrence of breast cancer, making treatment decision can be hard, especially if the benefits and advantages of the different choices does not appear to be clear.

I have tried to find some research or studies that would clearly state the benefit or disadvantages of one over the other. Unfortunately, I could not find any that would give a clear outcome of TC6 vs TC4.

Deciding on whether to have 6 or 4 cycles of TC chemotherapy can be a very difficult decision to make but ultimately has to be the right decision for you at this time.  No one can say exactly what will happen in the future and it is likely there will always be some uncertainty. 

We would recommend you speak to you breast care team about this again, they must have had some thought why 6 cycles would be more beneficial for the long-term outcome after a recurrence of a grade 3 breast cancer than 4 cycles.

The oncologist would not normally advise on a treatment if they would not believe there is a beneficial outcome for the individual person.

I hope this has been helpful, but please don’t hesitate to get back in touch if you need any further information or support.

Best wishes and take care 

Annerose (Cancer Information Nurse Specialist) 

You can also speak with the Macmillan Support Line team of experts. Phone free on 0808 808 0000 (7 days a week, 8am-8pm) or send us an email. 

Ref/ AM/ HW

Thank you for your message. It's full of good advice. I understand how difficult it is even for the oncologists as there are not many evidence or trials on local / regional recurrence patients. Many thanks Annerose-Macmillan