Does surgery increase recurrence risk?

I want to get tubal ligation done and am worried that the surgery might cause recurrence? I am done with my chemo 4 months ago for stage3b and on a year of Herceptin? Anybody had undergone surgery after finishng chemo and what are your thoughts about recurrence risk.

thanks,
Julie

It's a rumor that surgery causes cancer to spread. And I can't imagine how it could cause recurrence. AHHH, if only that was the answer.

Discuss your fears with your doc.

Love and light,

Lisa

I agree with Lisa. There's no correlation between surgery and cancer recurrence--much less any causation.

The only possible link might be stress, but any stress that might lead to cancer is long-term and that related to surgery is short-term.

Why did you ask? What have you heard to make you think there might be a link?

[Rozebud]

I agree. There is one poorly written article out there that I keep seeing over and over again, from Italy, several years ago, that implies a correlation. Never seen anything else.

I just had 2 surgeries - one in May, and one in July. (2 phases of SGAP reconstruction....long surgeries). Just had a PET last week - ALL CLEAR!

"ER" on TV last night was partially about this very subject. The docs had to convince a woman to get even a needle biopsy. Because she believed in the myth that surgery causes cancer to spread. As the characters explained, back when people would wait a long time to go to the doc, the surgeon would open up somebody and they'd see that the cancer was everywhere. Folks at home would say, "They opened Joe up and it made his cancer go everywhere!"

Love and light,

Lisa

I had read somewhere that for HER 2 and other HER pathway stimulated cancers, surgery can cause cancer to grow (not spread). THEORY (and I mean theory) is that to heal, growth hormones are made in large amounts (and this includes epidermal growth factors which are instrumental in healing). Therefore, more growth factor is around to stimulate growth factor stimulated cancers to grow.

Therefore, being on Herceptin at the time of surgery is (again) theoretically a good thing.

I really can't remember where I read this. I want to say on this board but that might not be the case.

Best wishes

Becky

Becky,

Pardon my not following you, but I think you're saying Her2 is a growth hormone. It is not and is actually a protein.

It increases the rate with which cancer grows, but it doesn't respond one way or another to surgery.

Love and light,

Lisa

Lisa

You are right and I mis-wrote with the word hormone. However, in healing, more human epithethal growth regulator (protein) is produced. The Her 2 positive breast cancer has the receptors on it that responds to the growth regulator. More protein, more can bind (except if Herceptin is nicely attached to those receptors and blocking the attachment). So, theoretically, surgery can cause growth but not spread (if this is even true at all). Also, I think the protein is a hormone as a hormone is any substance that produces a specific effect on the activity of cells or produces a stimulatory effect on cellular activity. Some hormones can be proteins and some can be fats (or fatty substances - I did study for my MS in biochemistry studying lipid (fat) chemistry although enzymes is where its at and they are always proteins) . Oh well.

Best wishes

Becky

Becky

two cents...sigh..for what it is worth, I NEVER had bone mets until ONE month following a typical laproscopy. They tubed me...lung machine, I didn't want it as in Europe this procedure is performed sometimes without general......and from the moment I woke up, I felt this horrible pain in my sternum--a PAIN I HAVE NEVER< NEVER HAD BEFORE, and being a weight lifter, I would have noticed...anyway, a bone scan a month later glowed like a star on top of the Christmas tree in the same spot where the pain never went away. Up until that time, although I had had bouts of liver mets, I'd never had bone mets...of course it is possible the bone mets was just there waiting to happen...and was a coincidence with the surgery. Yet so far, that one spot on the bone is all that is showing and now the CT says involution has occurred meaning the bone has returned to its normal size and shape (thanks to HERCEPTIN yeah) although the bone scan still lights up. The onc says this is because the cancer is still active and the herceptin is still hitting it and increased activity shows up on the scan...comments?? thoughts??? similar scenarios???