Hi. I've had left mastectomy and I'm on my 5th of 8th chemo, to then be followed by 15 rounds of radio and 7 years of Letrazole. I believe the ductal component of my cancer is quite rare and perhaps more prone to recurrence hence the aggressive treatment (most woman I speak to have only required 6 chemos). Any input on this very welcome. Thanks in advance x
Hello, I had a mixed ductal / lobular cancer. The lobular part of it wasn’t picked up until after surgery, via the pathology results. Before surgery I had 6 rounds of three weekly chemo (2 x EC which had a little effect, and 4 Docetaxal which had a big effect). The oncologist switched me to Docetaxal after 2 x EC, following an MRI showing that there was some response to EC ‘but not a response that she would like to see’. She tried to reassure me that this likely meant that the tumour was a lower grade than previously thought as the slower growing ones don’t respond so quickly to EC (that’s what she said). I guess this was the clue that I had a mixed tumour ( the lobular was grade 1, and the ductal was grade 2). But the lobular bit never showed up on any scan.
Docetaxal was brutal for me, but after one dose, the response was much better. In the end, I had a complete response to the lobular bit, and a partial response to the ductal bit (it had shrunk to less than 1/3 of its original size.
I had always opted for a mastectomy, and it was after that I found out about the mixed tumour. I then had 15 sessions of radiotherapy and a hormone inhibitor was prescribed for ten years, and I am 3 years 8 months through that. 18 months after the first mastectomy I had a second one for symmetry.
I don’t know what chemo you are on - things have changed a bit since I was diagnosed 4 years and 2 months ago. Well done for doing 5 sessions. I hope you are ok xx
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