Stage IIB Breast Cancer Treatment Followed by BRCA1 Testing

What happened, in summary

A woman in her early 50s had been diagnosed with right-sided breast cancer in her late 40s. Surgery consisted of a right mastectomy with axillary lymph-node dissection. Pathology confirmed stage IIB invasive ductal carcinoma, classified as pT2N1M0. She then received adjuvant chemotherapy and continued endocrine therapy for 10 years. During that period, there was no evidence that the breast cancer had returned.

Her family history included a father who had gastric and colorectal cancers. In her early 50s, she underwent hereditary-cancer testing and was found to carry a pathogenic BRCA1 variant, leading to a diagnosis of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome. The result prompted her to seek risk-reducing removal of the ovaries and fallopian tubes and to attend a gynecology assessment. She described being surprised when that preoperative assessment identified a separate gynecologic problem, but she felt able to proceed after receiving a detailed examination and explanation from her clinicians.

Her breast-cancer course remained favorable: mastectomy, chemotherapy, and a decade of endocrine therapy were followed by no evidence of recurrence. She continued gynecologic care after the BRCA1 result while remaining free of recurrent breast cancer.