If you take the AI, they know what the recurrence is, but without AI, they don't know hmmm Just sayin'

Your oncologist can't do simple arithmetic, :-)? OK, the breast cancer industry currently assumes that taking aromatase inhibitors 'can' reduce the risk of recurrence for estrogen positive, progesterone positive, HER2 negative by about 45%. They use 50% as it's an easier statistic to quote and "sloganize" and is a bit more conservative. [I don't know about other categories of breast cancer and they all have their own statistics.]

If your OncotypeDX 'risk of recurrence' number is 4%, it's the risk of logoregional recurrence within 9 years if you take aromatase inhibitors. Arithmetic then would assume that you have an 8% chance of recurrence if you don't take AIs, using the 50% risk reduction they apply, if that number is valid. Another way to look at this is that you have a 92% odds against "locoregional recurrence within 9" years by taking AIs and 96% odds against recurrence if you take them. This is the interpretation I got from two different oncologists and talking to Oncotype.

The OncotypeDX is generally used to look at the genetics of early, stage 0 or stage 1 tumors that are estrogen sensitive so this analysis shouldn't be used for other, or more complicated, cancers.

The way I looked at things, in my situation, was to balance the differential in odds of recurrence versus the side effects of anastrozole and a need, then, for osteoporosis drugs if I took AIs and decided that the slight difference in theoretical risk wasn't worth the known side effects and difference in quality of life. [However I did first try anastrozole and had joint pain almost immediately. I repeated the trial with the same result.] Cancer is nasty and we have reason to dislike it intensely but the odds against recurrence, for most breast cancers, are nonetheless greater than the odds for recurrence and I think it's helpful to keep that in perspective too while otherwise doing what we can to become healthier generally.]