Erin's Cancer

My sister's best friend Darla sent an email which reached me today. This is what we know about Erin's breast cancer:

"She found a lump in her right breast about a week ago. After 2 mammograms, an ultrasound and an MRI, she has been diagnosed with breast cancer. We don't know what "stage" it is just yet. Her oncologist is waiting on one more test result. Erin is 35 years old so you can image how surprising and disturbing this is.

She went to the oncologist today and this is what we learned. It is a fast-growing, aggressive cancer. Good news = fast-growing is fast-killed. Her breast cancer is classified as estrogren/progesterone receptor positive. This means that there is an receptor on the outside of the cancer cell that estrogen and progesterone bind to. Once it is bound to that receptor, a message is sent to the cancer cell nucleus to divide aka GROW. The oncologist recommends chemotherapy first then surgery followed by more chemo. They want to see how Erin's cancer responds to the chemo before doing surgery, which will give them an idea of how effective it is on Erin. The goal is to shrink the lump so that it is easier to remove. Erin's chemotherapy is tenatively scheduled to start next Monday, November 22nd (yes . . . a week from today). She is having surgery at Baylor Garland this Thursday to have a port placed in her subclavian vein, which is close to her collar bone. This will allow them to easily give her the chemo infusion without tearing up her veins. Normal chemo treatment is approx. 6 rounds, each 3 weeks apart. It is likely that she will experience the typical chemo side effects = nausea, low blood counts and hair loss. The oncologist was extremely nice, caring and will do what he can to minimize these side affects. The hair loss possibility is what prompted Erin to get her hair cut. She kept her cut-off hair and can have it made into a wig is she wishes. The chemo can also damage her heart so the oncologist had an echocardiogram done to get a "before" picture of Erin's heart. They will use this picture as a baseline to compare and watch out for any damage that may occur.

After chemo, the surgeon will remove what's left of the lump (lumpectomy). Then she will undergo another type of chemo - a pill form - something like Tamoxofin for possibly several years. Tamoxofin is anti-estrogen chemo and is a more specific type of chemo. This means it will compete with estrogen and will bind to the estrogen receptor on the outside of the cancer cell and turn the cell "off" so it won't divide or grow anymore. Then Erin's immune system will destroy these cancer cells.

Today the oncologist also ordered a blood test to test for the breast cancer gene (BRAC). If it comes back positive, the oncologist may recommend a more aggressive treatment, such as a mastectomy instead of a lumpectomy. They would also need to monitor for ovarian cancer, which can be associated with genetic breast cancer."


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone