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Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Breast Cancer / October 2009Cancer question
Are there any limitations as to how much chemotherapy or radiotherapy you can have with breast cancer? I have a friend who has already had two lots of chemo and two lots of rads, and now has secondary cancer. I know the answer might vary dependent on the strength of chemo/rads but any general help would be appreciated. Splodge > Are there any limitations as to how much chemotherapy or radiotherapy you > can have with breast cancer? I have a friend who has already had two lots [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Splodge Yes there are limits, but each drug and therapy has its own different limit, and she is unlikely to have reached any of them during primary treatment. With radiotherapy, the limit is for the particular tissue irradiated, and may become an issue late in secondary treatment, depending on the treatment strategy used. The actual limit depends which tissue is involved, and what other organs may get radiated incidentally. With chemotherapy, there are quite a lot of drugs to chose from, so when one drug reaches the limit of tolerance or becomes ineffective, there are others available to switch to. Tim Jackson > Yes there are limits, but each drug and therapy has its own different > limit, and she is unlikely to have reached any of them during primary [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > Tim Jackson Thanks Tim Splodge I am SO glad we are back to posting our normal posts and our young old-timers have not left us! The answers on the chemo and radiation therapies being done again if the cancer returns confuses me. My Onc's answer was quite different. I did not think they could redo the patient again if it reoccurs. Does this mean only if it reoccurs in the same breast? If it is a different part of the body or the other breast can they do the chemo and rads again? I am on my second 5 years of Arimidex as of this summer and don't know what the survival factors are for the second go round so am really interested in what my options are in case the Arimidex does not protect me for this next go round. Thanks for any info! By the way, I am one of the old-timers too but you may not recognize my name. Because of intense spam, I have to change everything ever so often on Webtv. Trice > I am SO glad we are back to posting our normal posts and our young > old-timers have not left us! [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Trice Radiation to the breast after lumpectomy is a quite different treatment from radiation for metastases, and in different places. The first is a repeated low-level wide area radiation, the second is a single high intensity highly localised dose targeting a specific tumour. If you have a lumpectomy plus radiation, and get a recurrence in the same place, then you would usually follow up with a full mastectomy, without radiation. I don't think it would be done to re-run radiation in the same place. But if you go to stage IV and get say metastasis in the hip, then there is no reason why you can't have radiation to the hip. Likewise if you get a new cancer in the other breast. The radiation isn't usually limited by a whole-body dosage but by the local exposure of particular tissues. Chemo obviously is always a matter of whole body dose, and the answer is different for each drug, and each patient. Regarding your Arimidex, there is really no way of knowing how much it is or isn't protecting you except by reference to historical statistics. There is no test you can do on an individual patient to see how well it is working, either you get cancer or you don't. Arimidex blocks the production of estrogen, and so restricts the growth or development of ER+ tumours, and so reduces your risk of getting another cancer. However not all cancers are ER+, so there remains some residual risk however much that one is reduced. So it is not really meaningful to ask whether Arimidex might not protect you, only whether you can tolerate it, or whether there is a better, newer drug available. And if you get serious side effects, then indeed there are other options. Tim |
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