Breast Cancer

[croyde]

My wife's friend and business partner was diagnosed about 3 weeks ago with Breast Cancer. She is due to have the breast removed next week but her biopsy results today show that it has spread to her lymph nodes.

I know this is serious but is it still treatable and what does it involve?

Sorry to ask but just need to know so that I can say the right things to my wife, who is very upset and to the poor woman and her family.

Awful news and she has 4 kids including a one year old.

[ShadownINja]

Dunno if this is relevant: http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/facts/hodgkins...

[motco]

Been through a load of this in my family. You need to know a lot more than you'd think: stage (that's the spread to the nodes bit), grade (that's how aggressive it is), whether it's oestrogen dependent or not, if it's lobular or ductal... It goes on. How old she is - pre or post menopausal is quite important too. How old is she? Is there a family history? The prognosis can be good with proper treatment but in my view it is never truly 'cured' - there's always a possibility of recurrence later, maybe much later, maybe never. She needs to be advised by a good oncologist. One positive thing, though, is that the longer she survives, the better her chances because development of treatments goes on apace.

There is evidence that animal fat in the diet is better avoided: Professor Jane Plant (a geologist but also a breast cancer sufferer) wrote 'Your Life in Your Hands' about dairy products being implicated. She points out that one in ten western women will get breast cancer whilst one in ten THOUSAND rural Chinese women get it - wealthier urban ones are less favourably rated but they eat a more western diet. It is not because they're Chinese because those that move to the west and eat a western diet regress to the western disease rate. China does not have a dairy industry, milk contains loads of hormones - IGF-1 in particular and this is known to be implicated in breast and prostate cancer. Go non-dairy?

[motco]

Oh and by the way, lymph nodes that are affected have breast cancer tumours, not Hodgkinson's as far as I understand it. The metastases (secondary tumours) tend to be (apart from the lymph nodes) in bones, lungs and brain but all the tumours in these sites are breast cancer tumours 'seeded' from the primary.

[croyde]

Thanks.

Her husband is a doctor, a consultant in something, not oncology, so I'm sure that she will get the best treatment. Have to say that from what I have read in the past hour, this is not good.

[Lucie W]

I'm not at all qualified for anything but I have spent the last few weeks in a breast cancer unit, in fact I watched a bilateral mastectomy a few hours ago. I know that around here, about one in ten women that have a mastectomy end up needing axillary (armpit) lymph node clearance (have them all taken out). Prognosis completely depends on where the cancer has metastasised to and how advanced it is. If she was due to have the breast removed then the lump probably isn't that big and might not have metastasised too much, but I'm not sure if this is the case.

[Davel]

The earlier it is diagnosed and treated, the better her chances.

My first wife left it far too late sadly.

[motco]

Davel said:

The earlier it is diagnosed and treated, the better her chances.

My first wife left it far too late sadly.

I am truly sorry to hear that Davel. That's the story of my late father's early life, his first wife (not my mother) died at the age of 34 of the disease.