Adjuvant recurrence analysis & possible chemo

Hi onlinesally, I’m sorry you have been diagnosed with cancer. Unfortunately many of us have received adjuvant chemotherapy. I didn’t  meet the criteria for my cancer to be tested for recurrence risk at my trust as was 61 at diagnosis but did consent to the optima trail. This trial may or may not have shown I was at high recurrence risk. I had cancer in 2 lymph nodes and was a grade 3 but the trial assigned me to chemotherapy. 
My oncologist informed me the aim of this trial is to see if the cost of the test for recurrence risk was cost effective compared to treating women with chemotherapy who may not need it . If your recurrence risk is being tested I think that is a good thing. I may have received chemotherapy that I didn’t need but we are benefiting from women who have gone before us and have taken part  in research. I did consider paying privately for one of these test which range from £1400-£2000. 

I should have said the standard treatment for my cancer was chemotherapy, the recurrence test may have shown I didn’t need chemotherapy. I don’t know which arm of the trial I was in, the control group or the tested group.

Yup, my oncotype dx results indicated chemo is better, the reason is because if there is a trace of cancer that broke off and remained in your body, it could attach to a lung a bone or something else and come back as stage 4 bc , which is supposed to be terminal ….I was tempted to refuse it … but chemo is not as bad as you might imagine. My last chemo session is in 5 days 

Hi Iman and Shade

Thank you both for responding to me.  I probably sound a bit ungrateful but I was a bit surprised.  I didn't know that my sample had gone off for analysis as no-one had mentioned it before at the clinics! If it helps into research for the future, that's even better.  I'm still a bit topsy-turvy in my thinking as I remember that I'm cancer free (for now) after having resigned myself to being ill for half this year.  I do remember reading about extra tests in Julia Bradbury's book and thinking that I should ask about that, my team obviously preempted this.

Hi Inman, you don’t sound ungrateful. I felt the same about Abemaciclib. After going through surgeries, chemo, radiotherapy and commencing Letrozole and bisophosphates I just didn’t want to do this drug for 2 years, but after I had an “internal tantrum “ I realised I was lucky to be offered this expensive drug- 3 months down only 21 months to go.