stage 3a rectal cancer

earied said:

what's next
I had the same thing T2N1 with 1 in 12 lymph nodes with cells. I did have radiation and chemo. I had 15 rounds of radiation with 5FU chemo pump Monday-Friday. Then I had a month break and had Folfox-8 rounds every other week with the 5FU pump for 3 days. I had rectal cancer. Finished treatment in June.

Best wishes.

Ann

hi
hi i had stage IIIa rectal as well- mine was borderline at 15 cm from rectosigmoid junction. I had T1 with 1 node of 26 positive- had the sandwich regimen of 2 cycles fulfox then 28 days chemoradiation then 10 more cycles chemo. Some get 8 with radiation and some get 12. I chose to be very agressive because my cells were grade 3 of 4 moderately differentiated. According the memorial sloan calculator for our stage..the prognosis is in the upper 90's. According to my radiation onc..sometimes those cancer cells just break away and find their way to the nodes. it only happens under 20% of the time in T1 and T2..sadly the thing is we would not have needed chemo or radiation had it not been in the node. We would have instead been stage I. the good thing is that you had the surgery and got that lymph node out as some people with T1 and T2 just have the polyp or tumor removed and just do surveillance because of the 80% chance it is not in the nodes. Radiation can be very very tough..I have lots of info i would like to pass on to you if you do get radiation. The doctors tend to leave out some of the important stuff which can affect your life immensely, so keep us updated on what the plan is. Good luck