Hi. My mother aged 77 was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer last year and had surgery (lumpectomy and removal of lymph nodes). Her cancer was graded 3C (I believe) as she had cancer in 20 out of 21 lymph nodes. She then had one session of chemotherapy but became severely neutropenic and spent a week in hospital with sepsis. They told her she would not be able to have any more chemo because of this. She then had radiotherapy without major complications. Her scans this summer were free of any recurrence.
I'm somewhat worried because I know that triple negative breast cancer is aggressive and likely to recur, and my mother did not have a full course of chemotherapy. If the cancer recurs I don't see what the treatment options would be since she can't have chemo so if that were to happen I don't think she would live long. All the stuff I have read talks about chemo for this type of cancer and doesn't seem to mention any other options. In addition, she wasn't tested for the BRCA gene mutation so I don't know if I should be concerned about myself, although there is no family history of breast cancer but my mum has no sisters and neither do I.
Does anyone have any actual information about treating triple negative breast cancer without chemotherapy?
