Really new

Hi Karen

I was also diagnosed with TNBC in January 2009, and have undergone surgery, chemo, radiotherapy and a trial drug called Avastin. From my understanding of it, there are good and bad things about triple negative. There are no taregetted therapies (like herceptin), that is why they are trialling things like Avastin, otherwise chemo and radio are it.  TNBC apparently reacts very well to chemo, so that's good. It is a more aggressive form so by the time it is found, it is often larger than other tumours and is usually grade 3 - that sounds scary but again my understandingg is that the grade is about the pathology of the tumour ie how quickly the cells change, not necessarily a prognosis. My oncologist has told me that while most breast cancers can come back over a number of years into the future, with triple negative, they have a higher reoccurence rate within the first 3 years after diagnosis, but that if you make it to 3 years (and preferably 5 years) they rarely reoccur (they are loathe to use the term 'cured' but I have heard that too). The fact is though, that even with triple negaitve a majority of people survive it and that's what you have to focus on. I used to hate the way that doctors spoke about survival in terms of '5 years', '10 years' etc as if that is all there is, but that it just 'science-speak' and eventually you DO start to think less and less about having had cancer and getting back to your old life, except that you can take away a lot of positive lessons from the experience you had no choice about - and you will meet a whole lot of people you otherwise wouldn't have while on the journey...baby steps