Do I really need chemo as well as all these other treatments?

[shoemdebb]

Stage I IDC with ER PR HER2 positive dx last month. They tell me a year of herceptin,  6 weeks of radiation and one round of TCH chemo. Is it really necessary to have the chemo?  My nodes were negative and tumor size 0.8 cm with clean margins on lumpectomy. What about hormone therapy? I no longer have my ovaries. Hx of cervical cancer at 27 treated with hysterectomy and last ovary removed 10 yrs ago for benign cyst.

[SueYoung55]

Aggressive cancers require aggressive treatment. You don't want a "do over".

Best wishes.

[bluebutterfly2222]

Some of the latest thinking is that even very small HER2+ and triple negative tumors, which tend to be very aggressive, should receive very aggressive treatment.

Breast tumors that are 1 centimeter in size or smaller — no more than 0.4 inch in length — can still be very aggressive and may require more intensive therapy than is routinely offered, was the finding of a 2007 study conducted by researchers at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.The study looked at outcomes of women who had tiny tumors that had not spread to the lymph nodes. The findings suggested that outcome of two types of breast cancer — those classified as HER2 positive (HER2+) and triple negative — may not depend on size alone.

Researchers found that cancer came back more frequently in HER2+ tumors (7.4 percent of patients relapsed) and triple negative cancers (12.5 percent), compared to HER2 negative/ER/PR+ cancer (1.3 percent).

Please discuss treatment decisions very thoughly with your oncologist before rejecting what could turn out to be life-saving treatments.

Best wishes...