Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy aka Preoperative Systemic Therapy

 I swear I did a post on this way early on, but I cannot find it in my list of posts, so here goes. It is often unknown that there are treatment options BEFORE surgery to remove the tumor. Initially, most of us just want the thing out of our body, so we likely just go along with getting surgery first. But there are benefits to preoperative systemic therapy for certain types of cancers. 

 I will only be addressing HER2+/HR+ cancer and more specifically one with a pT2 (pathologic tumor grade 2).

 The National Comprehensive Cancer Network states:

  In my specific case, had I not chosen to do preoperative systemic therapy, my prognosis would have been poorer and my overall recurrence rate higher. This is because, with neoadjuvant TCHP, I still had 10% of live cells in my tumor upon surgical pathology. This meant that TCHP did not do the whole trick and I needed further more targeted chemotherapy to help kill any remaining cells that were living in my body. Had I chosen surgery first, we would have never known and I would have never received my cycles of KADCYLA.

 No part of cancer treatment is a one size fits all so it is important to have serious conversations with your doctors on your care team to ensure you're choosing the right path for your overall outcomes. And pretend this blog post was written in January 2024.