Taxol or not

[Julieg1]

Good Morning,

I am 42 was diagnosed with stage II Breast Cancer and underwent a mastectomy in November.  One lymph node affected and the tumor was her+ and er/pr+.  I just completed 6 rounds of CMF.  My MUGA scan was at 41%.  My oncologist is leaving it up to me weather or not to undergo 4 doses of Taxol.  I will start on Tamoxifen after Taxol or immediately if I decide against the Taxol.  I am not sure wether the Taxol will have any benifit.  Do you have any thoughts?

Thanks,

Julie

[CCF-RN,MSN-JS]

Dear Julie, There is no actual data that shows benefit of Taxol added to CMF.  However, Taxol does add to AC (adriamycin and cytoxan) which is in turn equivalent to CMF.  So, there probably would be a benefit, but we have no direct evidence of that.

[Julieg1]

Thank you so much for your comments.  My Dr. Said that there really is no concrete evidence at this time that it would or would not have a benefit for me, but he wanted me to have the choice.  I am pretty sure I am going to go for just tamoxifen, since we do know that it does have a positive benefit.  Plus I really don't want to go through another 3 months of chemo, after already gone through 6 months.

Thanks again,

Julie

[surgeon]

This thought: I think it's fine to leave it up to you - in the final analysis, all decisions are up to the patient. But I think the doctor ought to state what she/he recommends, and why. So, as part of your decision making, you should ask that directly of your oncologist.