Hello and welcome to HCM.
Breast cancer has four stages, I to IV (where IV is metastatic and the cancer has spread to other organs). Because of the lymphnode affection she has a stage IIIC Breast cancer.
Because of the high lymph node affection, although they took away the disease with surgery, she has a great risk of the disease coming back. The treatment the follows the surgery is called Adjuvant treatment and the main benefit is to lower the risk of cancer coming back and to kill any cancer cells that may have been left in the body.
In a stage IIIC breast cancer patient the recommendation is
Chemotherapy followed by Radiotherapy to the chest wall and axilla.
There are some important factor that have to be considered to know what is the best chemotherapy regimen for this case. We have to know the estrogen and progesteron receptor expression of the tumor and the status of HER2 receptor.
The most used and standardized chemo regimen is four cycles of adryamicin and cyclphosphamide AC every three weeks, followed by 4 cycles of weekly
paclitaxel or
docetaxel every three weeks. If the tumor is estrogen receptor positive,
hormonal therapy is recommended after completeting chemo and
radiation. If the tumor is HER2 positive then
trastuzumab is recommended for one year.