Follow-up care plan

Once your active treatment is completed your oncologist will continue routine monitoring and surveillance. Active treatment includes surgery, radiation, and most systemic therapies. Hormonal therapy, like tamoxifen, is taken for many years and is therefore not considered an active treatment but a maintenance and preventative treatment.

The purpose of routine monitoring and surveillance is to ensure that your side effects from cancer and treatment are managed properly but also to screen for breast cancer recurrence or new cancers.

In the first 3-5 years after you complete active treatment, you will receive check-ups every 6 months to a year. Included in these check-ups you will receive a clinical breast exam. Your doctor will examine your chest area, surrounding tissue and lymph nodes. They will ask you about any new or worsening symptoms you may be experiencing. Always be sure to bring up any new changes you are feeling anywhere in your body.

You will also receive a yearly mammogram if you have not had a bilateral mastectomy. If you had a bilateral mastectomy, have dense breasts, or an implant-based reconstruction, ask your doctor what the best method of surveillance is for you.

Various other routine tests may be ordered based on your personal risk factors and what treatments you have received. If you have been receiving regular heart function tests due to your cancer treatments, these may continue. Bone density tests may be ordered if you are taking an aromatase inhibitor.

Once your oncologist is ready to transfer your care to your family doctor or the provider in charge of your primary healthcare, he or she will provide them with a review of the treatment you received, what treatments or medications you are currently taking, and guidelines to continue your breast cancer surveillance.

For more information on breast cancer recurrence, see our section on Types and Symptoms of Recurrence on cbcn.ca.

Download our Follow-Up Continuing Care Plan adapted from our Breast Cancer & You handbook.