[Becky]

At surgery, I was deemed node negative but “breadloafing” (which is slicing the node in thin layers and examining each layer) found 2 micromets to the sentinel node. During SNB, 3 nodes were taken but I had to go back into surgery 2 weeks later because of the “new” nodal status because to be sure, protocol says 7 must be taken. Since the nodes are embedded in fat, a surgeon really can’t “count” so the second surgery took another 7. Only that first one had a bit of cancer in it. So, even though I ended up being devastated to have a positive node when told a week later, I am glad it was found because it changed my potential treatment from 4 dense dose AC to adding another 4 dense dose taxol. Then 4 months later, I was able to start the Herceptin after the trial results were released. If I were node negative (but not really node negative), no taxol and I would have probably had a problem getting Herceptin so soon after the 2005 ASCO meeting.

Hopeful – you are right about old stats though. Women who really weren’t node negative would not get all the treatment they required (as in my example) and would tend to recur more readily.