I am scared ....

My oncologist said that if your tumor is HER2+ and is over 2cm, if you have only surgery and no chemo or herceptin/targetted therapy, you have about 50% chance, (ie one in two chance) your cancer will recur within 5 year as either a local or distant recurrence.If you are node negative it is about 45%, and if you are node negative, it is about 55%. That is far to great a risk for a healthy young woman who wants to see her children grow up, and it is a risk you do not have to take.Most people who die of breast cancer die of distant recurrence. So it is worth doing what you can to avoid it.  

But she also said that the good news is tthat the disease-free survival rates for node-negative is about 92% if Iyou have chemo and herceptin.  got quite sick with chemo, but I did get through it, and am very grateful there are these medications that are available for us that give us a much better chance of surviving primary breast cancer. 

With HER2+ cancer, if it is under 0.5cm, a new study shows that chemo may not be necessary.

They are also currently  running research trials where they only give targetted therapy plus a kind of chemo that is delivered directly to only cancer cells by the targetted therapy. I have a friend in the States who is on that drug trial. She said her hair has not fallen out and she has not had nausea or low white blood count, so such treatments are being developed now.  Maybe these will be the standard treatment in a few years time if we need further treatment then.