Triple Negative
Hi there, I’m new to this site and to be honest very scared. I had surgery a week ago to have a cancer removed (lumpectomy). Results are in. Clear margins and clear nodes (that’s the good news) Grade ...
Forum Discussion
Hi Kellee, I had testing to see if chemo was warranted. On the surface it wasn't, but my bad family history an responsibilities warranted a closer look. I was very lucky that my father paid for the test, known as an oncotype test. It cost $2998 I think. They test your tumour sample to see if chemo would have a curative effect if some cells had escaped and were looking for somewhere else to do their dirty work. The result came back as a clear yes (it's expressed as a number) so I gathered up my courage and did it. After some choice swearwords, a panic attacl and a flood of tears!
Some research has come out recently about the usefulness of the oncotype test. Take your group of breast cancer patients. There'll be a number who clearly need chemo, and a number that clearly don't. And in between there's a group where it is unclear if chemo would help or not. And because we don't know, we err on the side of caution and give the chemo to that entire group. Well the big study has tested a large population of that group in the middle and found 70% of them wouldn't need chemo at all as it would have no benefit. This provides tremendous justification for the government to subsidise these tests because of the enormous amounts of money they'd save, not to mention the suffering alleviated and the ongoing issues such as peripheral neuropathy that would be avoided. It wpuld save the government SO much money! Fingers crossed something gets done about it sooner rather than later. K xox
Some research has come out recently about the usefulness of the oncotype test. Take your group of breast cancer patients. There'll be a number who clearly need chemo, and a number that clearly don't. And in between there's a group where it is unclear if chemo would help or not. And because we don't know, we err on the side of caution and give the chemo to that entire group. Well the big study has tested a large population of that group in the middle and found 70% of them wouldn't need chemo at all as it would have no benefit. This provides tremendous justification for the government to subsidise these tests because of the enormous amounts of money they'd save, not to mention the suffering alleviated and the ongoing issues such as peripheral neuropathy that would be avoided. It wpuld save the government SO much money! Fingers crossed something gets done about it sooner rather than later. K xox