Diskusi Kanser Payudara

Diskusi Kanser Payudara

Some are Cured - Uncertainty Binds Us All Together.

"contrary to what someone keeps saying...there is NO CURE for cancer...if stages 0-3 were curable then none of us would ever have a recurrence...the best is remission....no evidence of disease.....and stage IV, again, contrary to what has been said isn't an automatic death sentence!

Dear Nancy, From the National Cancer Institute Women only:

cancer.gov/cancertopics

There are 230,480 case of new cancer each year . There are 39,520 death from cancer each year. Do the math! Some women will have a local or regional recurrence and then go on to live a normal life. The majority of women diagnose with stage 0-3 will go on and live a cancer free life. So for all practical purposes they are CURED. This stage after treatment doesn’t have a disease, so there is no remission. They will have NED on their charts unless they go on to have a local, regional, or distant recurrence.

The negative is we don't know who will go on to be diagnose with distant metastasis. One can be stage 0 and morph to what we call stage IV. Some with large cm tumors with many, many malignant lymph nodes will never have another brush with breast cancer. Some are diagnose with stage IV at the onset. Other women will be diagnose with distant metastasis or advance cancer. True it is not an automatic death sentence in 2011 and hasn't been for many, many years. However, except for that 1% who are suppose to survive metastatic breast cancer, as it stand now, all the others will succumb to the disease in due time. There is always hope that something new will prove to be the magic we have all wanted and have been waiting patiently for so many years.

Some women have lived 30 years with metastatic disease. In 2009 at the Metastatic Breast Cancer conference sponsored by Dana Farber, a woman named Rita Arditti spoke of living 30 years with distant metastasis. She was diagnose at age 39 and died at age 75 from breast cancer. A friend of mine lived 26 years with metastatic bc, having had the disease for 34 years, dying also in her mid 70's. Some can live a long, long time with quality of life. They are not the norm. Many do go into remission and also have NED on their chart but, it does manage to return at some point. This stage has no cure and eventually the cancer learns how to deactivate all treatments. What we all share as a sisterhood is the uncertainty of breast cancer. If we are stages 0-3, we are always waiting for the other shoe to drop. If we are stage IV, we dread progression and every scan.   Doris

Hi Katy  Because like most have said, there is no guarantee that they got every cell, or even all the breast tissue. I had a single mastectomy with chemo and still got a recurrence, but do believe that I would not have been 8 1/2 years in remission (or neds) without the chemo. I was given the choice an believed that my cancer is related to Hormone Replacement Therapy, and all the research I had done on HRT induced bc, led me to this decision as did my oncologist and the surgeon. No regrets on having the mastectomy and for me I believe that chemo was my best option. I am now stage iv, but believe I would have gotten to this point sooner without the chemo.

I do not agree that some are cured. As far as I have learned through research, my onco, and second opinions, there is no cure for breast cancer period. Some have a recurrence and some don't. If I die of something other than bc, it does not mean I was cured just that I died of something else.
But I also know from research that for the amount of people diagnosed with breast cancer, not everyone has a recurrence, and most don't die from it. So this is really a personal choice and like everything else, you have to do your research and make a decision based on your information and gut feeling on whether or not to have chemo. It is a personal choice and chemo is not for everyone. Prayers and good luck to you, this is a difficult decision. Carol

Hi Katy...In June of 2011 I

Hi Katy...In June of 2011 I had a bilateral mastectomy.I had stage 2 Invasive breast cancer in my left breast. I then went through 6 months of chemotherapy. My last chemo was on December 13. My surgeon or oncologist did not recommend radiation because I did have bilateral mastectomy and my surgeon told me that she got all of the cancer.
Monday I went and had my tissue expanders exchanged for Implants. That was a wonderful day. I thought this was a new beginning and it would all be behind me soon. Today My plastic surgeon called and explained to me that he had removed scar tissue during the surgery and the pathology report was back and it showed that it was positive for cancer. He said it is in situ and non invasive but I will have to have radiation and possibly another surgery. I will find out more tomorrow. This is why having every treatment recommended is so important because they can never e 100 percent sure that they did get it all.You do whatever it takes to beat this beast. I know chemotherapy and radiation sounds scary and it is no picnic but you will find that you have strength in yourself that you never thought possible and you will find that it's not as bad as you are imagining it to be.
Good luck  My thoughts and prayers are with you.