Breast cancer

After your cancer treatment has ended, you will still need regular appointments with your cancer specialist. This is called follow-up. Your doctor will discuss your follow-up plan with you.

Follow-up may involve having a physical exam and a mammogram once a year.

Ask any questions you have, and to let your doctor know if you are having any problems. Tell them about any new symptoms, aches or pains you have, or if you are finding it hard to cope. It can help to write down what you want to say beforehand, so you don’t forget anything.

It’s important to go to your follow-up appointments so your doctor can check for signs of the cancer coming back (recurrence) and help with any side-effects that you may have. They can also check for new side-effects that may develop after you have finished treatment. It is best to be aware of these as early as possible so that suitable treatment can be given.

The end of treatment is a time when people often expect to feel relieved, happy and able to get on with life again, but it can take some time to adjust and for your body and mind to recover.

Join our Life and Cancer – Enhancing Survivorship (LACES) programme when you have finished treatment or started maintenance therapy. 

This workshop covers topics such as diet, exercise, wellbeing, finance and self-management and gives information on support and services to help you.

Learn about LACES

Sometimes cancer does come back, even after successful treatment. Cancer cells may remain in your body and grow again, although your doctors do all they can to prevent this.

If the cancer comes back in the breast or somewhere else, you can still have treatment. When cancer comes back in the breast area it is called recurrent breast cancer. 

If it has spread to another part of your body it is called metastatic or secondary breast cancer. Read more about metastatic breast cancer.