Surgery without further Treatment

I opted for a single mastectomy rather than lumpectomy so that I could avoid radiotherapy (assumption was that sentinel nodes would be clear, which they were). I then had genomic testing (Endopredict) to see if Chemo would be of benefit or not. All initial talks were that I wouldn't need chemo, but when it came crunch time with the medical oncologist she said she wanted me to consider it given my "young" age (45). Apparently medical opinions tend to change when they're trying to buy you 40 more years rather than 10 or 20 etc.

Mine was ER+ so I'm on tamoxifen for 5 years and will then likely switch to an AI for another 5. So not 'no' treatment, but I do feel like I've gotten off lightly in the scheme of cancer treatments, even though my surgery was quite major.

Great @Julez1958
I agree it's good to trust and have faith in the experts. 
Best wishes. 
Kind regards, 
Sazzi

Hi @SazziBloss
I had mastectomy for large (5.5cm) grade 2 lobular cancer which had not spread  to my lymph nodes.
My oncologist did not recommend chemotherapy , although she did recommend hormonal therapy ( as my cancer was ER positive) .
My breast cancer surgeon said it was not written in stone that I have radiotherapy but that I needed to speak to the radiation oncologist he referred me to about that.
Mainly because of the size of my tumour she recommended radiotherapy but if it had of been small I could likely have skipped it.
I followed all recommendations as I figure they are the experts and everything they said made sense to me.

Hi @FLClover,
Thank  you for your reply. 
Hopefully with clear margins the recommendation for no further treatment will remain unchanged. 
It's good your doctors didn't take any chances with you. 
Kind regards, 
Sazzi

I had a DMX. If my surgeon had left clear margins, I wouldn’t have needed further treatment. I had multifocal and bilateral breast ca, not aggressive, stage 1. I needed bilateral radiation due to the reason mentioned. 

Hi @iserbrown,
Thank you for the links. 

3 types of cancer were identified in pathology ~ Paget's Disease of Nipple / Areola, High Grade DCIS and microscopic  HEP2 positive cells. 

@SazziBloss 

Do you know what type of Breast Cancer you had or have?  

https://www.bcna.org.au/understanding-breast-cancer/treatment/surgery/types-of-surgery/

https://www.bcna.org.au/resource/fact-sheet-breast-cancer-pathology/

Hi @Cath62,
Thanks for getting back to me, I really appreciate it. 
Kind regards, 
Sazzi 

Hi @Sazzi, no I haven't heard of this but good to talk to the oncologist. Treatment is usually determined from pathology results. The surgeon may have a view of no further treatment but it's the oncologist who really makes the decision on meds, chemo and radium etc. Best wishes for the future.