|
AA says: "It depends". Are we only talking ONLY about recurrence, or are we talking about the likelihood of dying sooner due to having cancer? For one thing, there is an unknown percentage of additional women who die sooner of "other diseases" brought on by cancer treatment <snip>
...do not know which of the treatments that turn out to be ineffective actually may potentiate recurrence; i.e., they may not only not be effective, but also contribute to the recurrence.
Does anyone have the numbers for the people who fall into those categories?
I think that the answer is "no", not really. There are some stats but because of what they are looking at (very long term effects), they are even more outdated (for those being treated today) than the survival-from-cancer ones are. But the number is small. Smaller than the one for breast cancer death and recurrence, certainly.
My take on this at diagnosis was that I'd rather do what I could to survive the cancer (more a short-term goal) and deal with what I had to do (perhaps) to survive the effects of treatment if/when that became an issue (long term). Die now or risk dying later - I chose later, with no qualms. At diagnosis, I figured that if I lived to deal with the possibly life-threatening aftereffects of treatment, I'd be most fortunate.
As for treatments that potentiate recurrence - we'd have seen that, wouldn't we? Yes there are treatments that are ineffective but the rub is that they are only ineffective for some while working wonderfully for others and we do not yet know how to tell ahead of time who is who. Progress is being made in this regard (individualized treatment) but it is slow, because the questions are incredibly complex.
Debbie Laxague
|