Chance of Contralateral Cancer after DCIS with Mastectomy

Kathye51

Coming up on 2 year anniversary of right side mastectomy for DCIS at age 59. I have been getting annual MRI and mammo for good left side with benign findings, but mammo 3 weeks ago showed coarse heterogeneous calcifications in a somewhat linear fashion (suggestive of ductal location). Radiologist said it is a challenging needle biopsy because of impant for mastopexy (breast lift). I have had to wait almost three weeks and am having biopsy done Monday. Can I hear from anyone who has had a second primary cancer finding in contralateral breast. I know if that's the case I will definitely opt for mastectomy pronto with reconstruction. Everyone said DCIS was "cured" by mastectomy. I was not ready at the time for BMX. Thanks for any input

CTMOM1234

I have not experienced a second primary bc in the other breast, but just wanted to wish you the very best with your upcoming bioposy and hoping for benign biopsy results! Considering the first was pure dcis (and hence confined to the duct(s) and unable to enter your blood stream or lymph system, this would be a completely independent bc.

Beesie

If you have cancer in your contralateral breast, then it is not related to your original diagnosis. It's a new primary.  DCIS cannot travel from one breast to the other and in fact even invasive cancer only very very rarely does that. However anyone who has BC one time (even just DCIS) is considered to be higher risk (than the average woman) to be diagnosed again with a new primary BC. There are differing opinions on how much your risk is increased - my oncologist told me that my risk was about double that of the average woman my age - and of course your risk depends on your age and other aspects of your personal and family health background. For me, having been diagnosed at 49, my oncologist estimated that I had about a 22% risk of being diagnosed again... vs. 11% for the average 49 year old.  That 22% was spread out over all my life till the age of 90, so it worked out to about 0.5% risk per year. 

Like you, I had a single MX because I just wasn't prepared to have a BMX at the time I was diagnosed.  I figured that a 22% risk over my lifetime also meant that there was a 78% chance that I wouldn't be diagnosed again.  I can live with that.  Like you I get annual MRIs and mammos. I've had a few BIRADs 3 and 6 month watch and wait periods for some cysts but so far everything's been stable. I do have calcs in my good breast - they were biopsed at the time I was diagnosed and found to be benign. They've caused no problem in the almost 7 years since.  

I don't know if there is anyone on the board right now who's had a biopsy for calcs in the contralateral breast after having a MX for DCIS, but I can think of a couple of women from this board who were in that situation and who did have benign results. And as I mentioned, I had calcs in both breasts when I was diagnosed and one set was DCIS (and a microinvasion of IDC) and the other was benign. The thing to keep in mind is because you've been diagnosed before, your doctors are extra cautious now. So what warrants a biopsy for you might not be considered worthy of a biopsy for someone else. Calcs are very common after all (about 50% of women develop them) and about 95% of the time, they are benign.  The linear formation of your calcs is suspicious, but the fact that they are coarse (and not fine) is a good sign. 

Good luck with the biopsy.  Hoping for benign results.