Mastectomy and recurrence

Hi, I googled this a while back, and like you I found info that said that it didn’t reduce recurrence chances. But data is a funny thing isn’t it - it depends what angle you are coming from. So when I landed on a site about the  BRCA gene  it said that a double mastectomy for those patients reduced the risk of a cancer developing by 85-90%. I also found a site that narrowed the data down a bit for early breast cancer - it said that the survival rates were no different between the two groups, but didn’t mention recurrence data at all. Sorry I can’t remember which site that was. Might be worth asking the Consultant / doctor, why they said that? Could be based on age, tumour type, other things, or simply just their opinion. 

Hello,  I'm in a sort of similar situation.  I had a mastectomy 4wks ago, lab results showed more details of  the tumour. Now I'm waiting on an oncotype test results. (Not spelled well) this will show of I would benefit from chemotherapy as I'm currently in the middle category due to tumour size even though it was stage 2 ductal carcinoma. I'm due to go on estrogen blockers. I dont want to do chemotherapy unless the risk of cancer reoccurring outweighs the risks of chemotherapy.  x

Interesting. Thanks Cloudier. Might be some factor about my specific case. Oddly enough I didn’t think of that.

Hmm… thanks. It’s real difficult to know what the right decision for you is, isn’t it? What has your doctor said about this?

Hello, I'm seeing the Oncologist to discuss the results from the test next week. 

I'm getting this test because my tumour was 2.3 cm - they said over 2cm is seen as possible candidate for chemotherapy!

These Oncologists bombard you with stats of survival rates of women with or without chemotherapy. 

x

Check the site used for those not having oncotype screening. It's based on the average, and fractionally it of date, though updated regularly.  https://breast.predict.nhs.uk/