As I understand from my doctors, if you have lumpectomy it is highly recommended to do radiation. If you have mastectomy it may not be necessary, depending on your whole situation. I opted for mastectomy and luckily no radiation.

Let me just add this is research for women 65 and older.

@A MyBCTeam Member yep, that’s the Oncotype DX score that tells whether chemo is recommended. It comes from actually testing your tumor, so you can only find out your score after surgery. I believe if it is over 25 chemo is recommended. Mine was 17, my new Lucky Number! 🍀

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A MyBCTea...

I was diagnosed IDC stage 1A. I'm 65 and new research is showing some types of cancer ( hormone positive, her2 neg. with no lymph node involvement) do not benefit much from radiation. A 5-10% chance of recurrance without it as opposed to 3-5% with radiation. I originally was to have 5 treatments. I opted not to do the radiation. I am on AI for five years. Recent first round of mammos after lumpectomy were all clear.

I had invasive ductal carcinoma also - stage 1, grade 2, clear lymph nodes. I was also given option to do lumpectomy + radiation or mastectomy. Went with mastectomy because I didn’t want radiation.
My oncotype score came out high so getting chemo!