My wife has been diagnosed with breast cancer it is level 2 B...why?

would she still need a breast removed if she is doing well with chemotherapy? After 5 treatments of chemo, the tumor has been reduced by half and now there was no signs of cancer in her lymph nodes where before there had been.

She is scheduled for a total of 12 of one chemo and then 12 of taxol. She is a "triple-negative" her cancer does not respond to hormones.

After all the chemo treatments are done and there is no sign of cancer anywhere...then why must they still remove her breast? Can't she just wait to see if a tumor develops again? Or if it comes back would it not respond to chemo again like it did the first time.

I don't care if she needs to lose a breast if she survives cancer. But I would like to spare her the pain of it. They are still going to remove the lymph nodes too. and then follow up with radiation.

If there is no sign of cancer can't she be spared the operation?

She doesn鈥檛 have to have the surgery. The final decision is up to her, but just because there are no signs of cancer left doesn鈥檛 mean that it is gone, it probably isn鈥檛, at least I haven鈥檛 seen one yet where it was.

Triple negative breast cancers have a much poorer prognosis and the chance of recurrence is high. If you decide to wait until there are signs of cancer again she will have to be vigilant about testing and even then it will likely be metastatic. At that point it will be difficult to save her life. As it is it鈥檚 no walk in the park now.

I don鈥檛 know how much time you have spent talking to her oncologist or if you fully understand the seriousness of her condition, but her treatment is to increase her chance of survival. You are not giving enough information for me to know what her chances are, but ask her oncologist what the 10 year survival rate is with and without the surgery. I think you may be surprised. Good luck to you both. I hope she continues to do well.