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Anyone had cancer return while taking hormone therapy meds?

Breast Cancer | Last Active: 4 days ago | Replies (240)
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@lilacs777

Has anyone done 'Signatera' testing for residual disease? I just learned about this and they say even if your insurance declines it, they won't charge you. They take the slides from your tumor, create some special test, and then run that against a blood sample from you. They then retest you every few months. If its positive, its detecting a recurrent up to 18mo in advance. So it can give you an advance notice.

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Replies to "Has anyone done 'Signatera' testing for residual disease? I just learned about this and they say..."
lifetraveler | @lifetraveler | Aug 9 7:48am

Hi! lilacs777:

Thanks for the info regarding the 'Signatera' test, for I am really interested in this test. Could you please let us know whether we should contact that company directly or via our medical oncologist? If our medical oncologist does not want us to do this test, how do we contact "them" directly to do this special blood test?

Thanks in advance for your help:) Best wishes to everybody in this journey going forward!

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windyshores | @windyshores | Aug 9 8:25am

@lilacs777 as I wrote before, my doctors only use Signatera and other blood tests, for patients already diagnosed with metastasis, to measure effectiveness of treatment.

I am 10 years out and am mentally marking that anniversary with a wish for a check up but after a double mastectomy, none is offered. In fact, even though risk goes up for hormonal cancers as time goes on, I was discharged after my 5 years of letrozole.

That said, testing every few months after a primary cancer seems like an anxious way to live. As does too much focus on lifestyle management, but that's me. We are all different!

It seems that for stage 4, there is no concern about catching cancer early, on the part of the medical establishment. I don't know if early detection of stage 4 makes a difference: does anyone else know?

It is a tricky balance to stay vigilant but also put cancer on the back burner. Many of us never have recurrence or spread. I have not pursued any check ins other than a couple of hip x-rays over the years.

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