Why metaplastic breast cancer should be removed before chemo and RIP Vickie Knuston

My dear friend and wonderful metaplastic cancer fighter Vickie Knuston passed away on November 17th after a long fight with metaplastic breast cancer.

We spoke on the phone and chatted regularly and she knew her time had come and spent it peacefully with her familiy and grand children.  Her death has hit me hard and I feel pain and anguish that I couldn't have done more for her, but I hope this post will help all our MBC girls moving forward.

Vickie also did something else.  She wrote to me in great detail about her whole cancer diagnosis.  Even though we were both stage 2b and grade 3 at the start we did some things in our treatment differently.  I am not saying that this is why Vickie passed and I haven't.  I am only trying to highlight what Vickie and I spoke about in the last few weeks of her life.   I hope that we can both help other women with this insight.

Vickie's stats

First Diagnosis - 8/22/11 2b Stage 3 MBC.  Sept 2011 - Invasis Ductal Carcinoma no DCIS or LCIS.  11 out of 11 lymph nodes positive.

Tissue samples sent to Mayo.  Results: high grade mammory carcinoma with anaplastic and sarcomatoid features.

Then:  1/31/12 Pathologic stage IIIC path T3/ T4b (15cm skin involvement and presurgical skin changes)  N3A 11/11 largest 5cm positive lymph nodes.  MX, grade 3 infiltrating ductal carcinoma on the right breast post mastectomy... marginal re-excision and split thickness skin graft placement with ultimate positive margins.

 

IN Brief:  The chemo stopped the cancer from spreading initially but it didn't contain it.  After the mastectomy radiation was used for the lymph nodes. 

So after the mastectomy and during the radiation the cancer spread to the skin and Vickie became stage 4 very quickly.  Due to the quick spread she was given chemo again but this time only as pain relief as the cancer had spread too much.  Two months ago, she decided to stop chemo and she felt a lot better without the chemo side effects until she passed at the weekend.

I (personal opinion) believe that if you have MBC you should have the cancer removed as soon as possible.  MBC jumps and moves very quickly and some girls have gone from stage 1 in April to Stage 4 in July. 

Last words from Vickie via an email a two weeks ago (below):

 

Phew. Hope my information can be of some use to someone else. There was a lot of debate among the local doctors and Sanford as far as whether it was best to do chemo or surgery first. Chemo first is the best way to treat the inflammatory, but surgery first is essential for the metaplastic. I don't know if there was a 'right' way to treat this that could have led to a different outcome... I have trusted my medical team from the start and believe they did the best they could with what they had to work with.

 

 

Comments

[Sheryl Schappert]

In following stats on MBC sisters, I couldn't agree more! In fact it appears in most cases of BC this is the better route as I lost a friend recently who had chemo first and it returned 2 times!

[Barbara Zarrell]

First of all my condolences to Vickie. Thanks for bringing to light information from both yourself and Vickie, thanks for the read.