Dr Radhika Lakshmanan

This depends on a number of factors. Firstly, is your mother is the only relation with breast cancer or are there more relatives with breast or ovarian cancers? It also depends on the age that your mother got cancer. If your mother got cancer when she was less than 45 years old and she is the only one in the extended family with cancer then your risk is double compared to someone without a cancer in the family. The incidence of breast cancer in Singapore is currently 1 in 14 women.

Chemotherapy is an adjuvant treatment modalty aimed to reduce the overall risk of cancer recurrence. The benefit and need for chemotherapy can vary from patient to patient depending on the stage of cancer, cancer biology, patient baseline health status and relative age of the patient. Stage 3 breast cancers will generally benefit from chemotherapy and omitting it may lead to a high chance of recurrence. Depending on tumour biology and one of which is what we call the receptor status of the tumour ,will dictate if the patient is suitable for endocrine treatment (tablets).

There is no evidence of protopic cream causing breast cancer. However there are cases of the cream resulting in skin cancer and lymphoma. A dermatologist or an oncologist will be more suited to explain further on this.