Forum Discussion

Ballerina33's avatar
Ballerina33
Member
3 years ago

Questions around removal of the primary in metastatic treatment

I am VERY new here so I hope this is not a silly question..... I have been diagnosed and one of my first shocks was they were no longer going to remove the primary cancer. I understand they say the data does not indicate significant impact on survival however this data is also questionable on integrity as its so old too. Has anyone also read about the removal of primary and the impacts and has anyone had a doctor willing to consider this? Or even address the conundrum of the data integrity vs the papers being written into this?
mastectomy
metastatic-breast-cancer
surgery
  • TonyaM's avatar
    TonyaM
    Member
    3 years ago
    Hi @Ballerina33,
    It’s not that black n white.It depends on various factors such as age, state of your health, how far spread are the metastasis and treatment regime. A few ladies in my group went ahead with a lumpectomy despite having a’spot’ on their vertebrae.They were treated with chemo after surgery. Years later and both are doing well- ‘spot’gone for now.
  • lrb_03's avatar
    lrb_03
    Member
    3 years ago
    It's not a silly question at all. Although this wasn't my path and I don't have metastases it is something that I've wondered about. I have read somewhere about someone having there primary removed after a period of treatment.