Tumour gone after neo-adjuvant chemo?

[vonny]

My daughter Lorna has now finished 6 rounds of chemo along with Herceptin and Zometa, however she continues with the Herceptin and Zometa every 3 weeks. She went for scans on Wednesday and it appears that the tumour in her breast has disappeared completely!
Her oncologist rang this morning and wants her to go in next week for biopsies of the breast.
My question is if the biopsies show no cancer cells should she still have surgery to remove the tissue where the tumour was?? Lorna is Stage 4 with mets to her spine but I am now starting to question this diagnosis of Stage 4. The radiologist we saw this week said that if Lorna did not have a cancer in her breast she would not question the very subtle abnormality in her 5th vertebra!! In fact she said she had never seen anything so subtle! Think more questions need to be answered!
Yvonne xx

['lizbeth]

Oh, I am so glad to hear the news, so glad the tumor went poof with treatment.

I can't answer about the surgery - I wondered the same myself. I think it is traditional to do surgery, but I would have to ask is it necessary. I'm sure the doctors will have information for you about this.

Oh, maybe she isn't stage IV - that would be wonderful news.
Wishing her No evidence of disease and a full recovery.

[carlatte7]

Good news!! My tumour was totally gone after 4 treatments, and i still had a partial mastectomy. There was no disease in the breast. The surgeon said she removed a little more tissue bc of scar tissue. I would worry that a biopsy only would miss something.

[Mandamoo]

That is wonderful that she had such a great response to the treatment and even better if she doesn't have spine met - I guess the only definitive way there is biopsy but I don't know how this works with bones - I have had some suspicious spots on bones that they have determined over scans are not cancer.
Re the surgery - seek varied opinions. I have a friend who had a complete response only to have recurrence back in the breast within months of completing her chemo - she was a Brca girl though and I think always planned the double mastectomy but was breast feeding. (She had chemo throughout her pregnancy)
I wish your daughter well and hope that it is not a met in her bones. Are her lymph nodes clear too?

[Pray]

How wonderful for your daughter and you! You can always wait a short time and redo tests and you can always get a 2 and third opinion. Nothing is set in stone. Gods blessings to you both. Please know that your whole family is in my prayers.

Peace, Your friend,

Nancy

[vonny]

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers.

Does anyone know if a PEP Scan would tell us for sure if it is cancer in the spine? I believe it would but not sure 100%.

Amanda, when Lorna was first diagnosed the lymph nodes were infected, when they did the scan on Wednesday they said the nodes looked normal but I’m guessing that the biopsies will tell us what is happening now. Again it’s back to the waiting game, the hardest part for me!
Yvonne xx

[Lauriesh]

A pet scan is not 100 % definitive whether it is cancer or not. But it is a very sensitive exam because I have degenerative disk in t4 & 5 , and my scans say that it is degenerative in nature. Usually if it is suspected to be cancer, the report will say " suspicious for metastatic disease " or some similar language.

Did the area in the spine get better after treatment? If there was a change then that is another reason that would point to it being cancer, ie - it responded to treatment.

The good thing of them classifying her as stage 4 is that she can stay on herceptin indefinitely, and hopefully stay Ned.


Laurie

[vonny]

Lorna had an MRI of the spine after 3 chemo’s and it remained stable she has not had one since finishing the chemo. It would be interesting to see if there is any change considering the breast has had such a good response I would expect the spine to have had some change if it is cancer.
But you know what Laurie I was thinking the same thing about being classifying as stage 4 and that Lorna can stay on Herceptin indefinitely, and that would hopefully keep her safe and stay Ned. My concern here is she is only 22 years old and would like to have a family and staying on Herceptin would affect this but then that’s another thread all together!
Yvonne xx