How will I know if symptoms are a possible reccurence?

@jgallagher04921

Are you concern with breast cancer reoccurring in another part of your body?
What type of pain are you having?

I've been having hip and lower back pain for a few weeks that comes and goes. It doesn't stop me from moving nor is it worse when I lay down unless I'm laying on my hip then it aches a bit more.

I am more than 9 years out and still don't have any idea how we can ever tell we have a recurrence. Most people I know have found out through testing or imaging for something else. If you are still on an AI, maybe you can take a holiday on worry. I finished 4 years ago and miss the relative security!

Many of us are older and have arthritis, stenosis, all kinds of pain. Twice I have requested an x-ray of a joint and my oncologist just tells me to go to the PCP.
Good luck to us all!

Hope someone comes along to share their story.

This article gives some hope to those of us who worry about recurrence, but I hope they get it on the market in the near future (which seems like it never happens.):
https://www.icr.ac.uk/news-archive/research-uncovers-how-to-target-sleeping-breast-cancer-cells-and-prevent-relapse?fbclid=IwAR30J3Q-rBjOi2h653iqloUDgUD-2TV6B9qUjB2G1uLrSk2Mnxb12SCW4OY_aem_Ac_UcOuM91zMYSJF2X-kEA47-wtYrIKVQjcqT08TocMmdZp6Z-yVPtB2EKZR2x9liFgCGfYbeVjOTOcI-CDMi9za

Thank you! This is a great reminder for everyone the importance of supporting cancer research if able.

So for ER+ cancers, cells can become dormant and evade treatment. This targeted treatment might be able to avoid that problem and even prevent us from having to do up to 10 years of anti-hormone treatment. Interesting.

I asked my oncologist about Signatera but they don't use it for detecting recurrence, only to monitor treatment of reoccurrence.

This is VERY early and very promising research. I did read a few articles about this very topic and I am quite impressed with this line of study. There is a couple groups in the US studying it as well but it feels like something that is going to be a minute before we see any clinical applications.
Thank you for sharing.

I have had Signatera 3 times already, my doctor is using it for detection of ctdna.

What is ctdna?

Circulating tumor dna. Your tumors shed dna. They check to see if any are in your blood. Apparently, if there is, it's indicative of a possible recurrence that can be detected before a scan could pick it up.