Concerned about diagnosis

courageunderfire15

I was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. I've had an initial biopsy - ultrasound guided core biopsy- which came back with a diagnosis of infiltrating ductal carcinoma. I then had surgery (mastectomy) and got diagnosis of Ductal carcinoma in situ. I'm just a little concerned because of the different diagnosis and wondered if anyone else has had a similar experience.

Thanks

 

Annette47

Have you questioned your doctors about it? I can imagine a scenario in which you had a larger portion of DCIS with a small area of invasive carcinoma embedded in it (micro invasion). If the biopsy happened to entirely remove the invasive part, then the pathology after the mastectomy would only reflect DCIS.

I didn't have that exact same thing happen, but my cancer (both the small DCIS and smaller IDC) was entirely removed by the biopsy, so the pathology following my lumpectomy didn't show any cancer.

farmerlucy

Any chance you can get a second opinion on the slides from the biopsy and the mx?

This is probably one of those things you're always going to wonder about. Johns Hopkins will do a second opinion on the pathology For $350 or $250
http://pathology.jhu.edu/department/services/secondopinion.cfm

My initial pathology was sent to Vanderbilt for a second opinion and I know they are excellent as well.