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Does Complete Mastectomy stop reoccurence

wonder
  • By wonder
  • Posted September 22, 2009 at 3:20 pm · 23 replies
  • In Recurrence
  • Shared with the public
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Do you think mastectomy stops metastasis or does mastectomy reduce the risk factor?

Explore topics in this discussion:

Cancer Surgery Confusion Avastin Breast cancer Chemotherapy Pain Lung cancer Sutent

23 replies

Paula109

I'm not an expert in that department but my mother's friend had bc with lymphnode involvement when I was in highschool. She had a mastectomy and chemo. Five years later it came back in the other breast. Again she had a mastectomy and chemo. She's been cancer free for over 30 years and still going. I on the other hand had bc back in 1996, no lymphnode involvement, had a mastectomy and chemo + 5 years tamoxifen. Twelve years later I developed mets to the bone and now in liver and lung. Go figure!

Deanie

There are no guarantees and cancerous cells can be so microscopic that they are not detectable. Please read some of the recent discussions at this site on reoccurence. However, I would have given anything if my oncologist had the option of a mastectomy. It would have made me feel that I was able to get this out of my body. Note this is not necessarily a fact as evidenced by my first sentence but I am being honest about my feelings.

Yasou

No. No. No. Breast Cancer is an insidious disease. A mastectomy will not stop from coming back. It may come not come back but the percentage estimated today is that it may show up years from the original date of diagnosis. The disease depends on many variables.
Have check ups in a timely manner, take your meds, do your scans.

gpawelski

The National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project tells us that mastectomy, lumpectomy, and lumpectomy with radiation have the same overall survival rate.

It is likely that surgical skill is a more important determinant of prognosis than the aggressive nature of the cancer or its stage at diagnosis.

Certain factors increase the risk of recurrence, nudging a woman with one to three positive nodes into the higher risk category. These factors include having a large primary tumor of 5 centimeters or greater, having cancer that has broken out of the lymph nodes to involve surrounding tissue, and having surgical margins that show some malignant cells.

Surgery is the most integral part of the multimodality treatment of many cancers. The line of reasoning frequently used to explain the value of surgery included five points.

(1) Surgery is thought to remove resistant clones of tumor cells and thus decrease the likelihood of the early onset of drug resistance.

(2) The removal of large masses likely to be associated with poorly vascularized areas of tumor improves the probability of delivering adequate drug doses to the remaining cancer cells.

(3) The higher growth fraction in better vascularized small masses enhanced the effect of chemotherapy.

(4) Smaller masses required fewer cycles of chemotherapy and thus decreased the likelihood of drug resistance.

(5) Removal of bulky disease enhances the immune system.

Sources:
Mayo Clinic
American Board of Surgeons
Society of Surgical Oncology

chloemom

Then there are those of us who had no initial risk factors, got bc, had mastectomies, no lymph node involvement, no other risk factors and who still experienced metastatic disease and are diagnosed Stage IV; in addition to the women & men here who went right to a Stage IV diagnosis .............

chainsawz

My decision to have a bilateral mastectomy was not firm until I read a post on another site from a woman who was in hospice and her primary breast tumor had grown very large and was wrapping around her back and causing her great pain. It was too late to have it surgically removed and it was also breaking thru the skin. I decided right then I was going to remove both of my breasts. I know this isn't a decision for everyone. It seems like the statistics support either choice, but I just didn't want to risk this possiblity.

margaret27217

Nope and that's my final answer.

jojobeans

I am the perfect example it does not!!! I was DX with DCIS or stage 0. I had the double masc and now 10 years later I have stage 4 - even though the drs keep telling me I was cured during those 10 years...

mom2acat

I can only speak from my own experience, but I had a bilateral mastectomy in 2003, when my cancer was still stage II, and it returned in the form of bone mets in 2007. But I have no regrets about the mastectomy, I felt I made the best decision for me at the time.

kleighk

Think about all the women dx with StageIV BC who never had a primary tumor in their breast. The disease will go where it wants regardless of your boob status.

wonder

thanks a ton for replying instantly--it adds so much to my knowledge---how about trusting god to get the disease out---has anyone tried?

god bless
wonder

Deanie

I'm sure many have tried and I'm sure there have been those types of direct/obvious miracles HOWEVER I believe Spirit helps those who help themselves. How are we to know that Spirit is not working through our oncologist or other healthcare providers? Working in mysterious ways, who are we to presume that our survival is Spirit's way/answer? Maybe our struggle is for someone else's redemption. My prayer always is thy will be done and that I can accept it graciously. This does not mean I won't fight with all my might to live, by any means necessary :-D

jojobeans

Wonder - I believe in faith and I image nightly the battle going on in my body... good cells fighting bad.. I visual it in my mind. I also believe that God will lead me where I go. If it means the cancer wins, then that is what it is. But I will keep fighting, as God gave me this to fight. No matter what, I am blessed with my family and friends, my mind, my spirit and the one thing this cancer can't take from me is my love or my positive attitude. I refuse to let it win... I will always smile and laugh....

jojo

mariec

NO.

nancyc

The issue with breast cancer that many people don't grasp is that it's a SYSTEMIC disease, not a local one. That means that cancer cells aren't just located in a single tumor, they can roam through the body. Additionally, no matter how skilled a surgeon is, it's NOT possible to remove every single cell of breast tissue with a mastectomy. A mastectomy lowers the risk of recurrence greatly, but can't eliminate it entirely. The point of all of the other BC treatments, and research into new approaches is to eliminate cancer that is too small to be identified by scans, lab work, or other measures.

gpawelski

The alternative hypothesis of breast cancer suggests that breast cancer is a systemic disease and implies that small tumors are just an early manifestation of such systemic disease, which if it is to metastasize, has already metastasized.

However, another hypothesis considers breast cancer to be a heterogeneous disease that can be thought of as a spectrum of proclivities extending from a disease that remains local throughout its course to one that is systemic when first detectable. Better surgical removal of residual tumors may be important.

soccermom1962

2008 double masectomy 2009 recurrance third time. Just finished radiation after chemo.

LaGata

No.

margery

Hello, RE: stage IV breast cancer that has already metastasized to the bone -- do you think further mets come from the original tumor or the bone mets or both? Thank you for input, Margery

wonder

hi margery,

i can understand the confusion in your mind coz all of us are baffled when we think how cancer spreads--i bet you no one on the earth knows whether the metastasis comes from the original tumour or from the secondary site. logically it shd be from the latter site. just like there is no 100% proof whether mastectomy clearly prevents metastasis.research has no significant answers to pertinent qtions re cancer spread.
in my opinion we can prevent cancer from happening in the first place by reducing stress,worry and a negative lifestyle come what may. if at all it develops all of us shd have strong will power to fight it out of our system and have strong faith that god will also make it happen--this is utmost imp for a miracle to happen.in my knowledge all my aquaintances and relatives who had cancer had very stressful lives and almost killed themselves with worry abt some issue in their life w/o realising what they were causing to themselves--i wish someone on this site cld benefit from my this note--and stop worrying--lead a happy lifestyle and have a strong faith in god.
good luck margery and pray you can still fight the cancer out of your body by praying--yes you can do it!!!!
take care!!!

love
wonder

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