Scared. Honest Advice from bc patients please

Sunrise97

Anyone with a large non mass enhancement on mri on dx ?

Here's my story and I'll try to make it short.

Symptoms

Right breast pain. Both nipples have dark and yellow crust. Palpable area of thickness. Night sweats. Fatigue. Sleepy. Leg pains.

Imaging.

Mammogram result: extremely dense breasts.

Ultrasound only of right breast: no lump or mass seen. Tech mentioned thickness but did not state it in final report.

Mri

Large non mass enhancement of right breast. Regional hetrogeneous distribution. almost half the breast affected.

Mri guided vacum assisted breast biopsy pathology

Variable fibroadipose tissue. Tiny cyst lined by epocrine metaplasia. Diagnosis : benign breast tissue.

I've read non mass enhancement are a challenge and harder to accurately be diagnosed.

The pathology report dies not seem to correlate with the mri. Been going from doctor to doctor and most seem to ignore the pathology as long as it states benign they are ok to wait 6 months and recheck it.

2nd radiologist (a friend) thinks biopsy was not done right and tissue was taken from wrong area.

I am very confused and scared now. Last week I saw a breast surgeon who was not happy that I got an opinion from a friend. Infact she was rude enough to say I should go to the city where my friend lived and consult.

She said she would look at images meet a radiologist and talk to oathologist and call me the next day. Never called. Went for thanksgiving will be back next week.

Iam worried. Don't know what all my reports mean. No one gives clear answers.

If anyone had mri for bc pleas any info would help. Dies this sound malignant.

With 4 kids no proper health insurance don't know who can really help me.

sarahjane7374

It's completely possible to have a breast (or breasts) full of things that aren't breast cancer. I had several biopsies of areas of concern that showed up on all forms of imaging - mammo, u/s, and MRI which turned out to be 'benign fibrous breast tissue'. Adipose tissue is fat, so something called variable fibroadipose tissue sounds like fibrous/fatty tissue to me. And that's pretty much what breasts are made out of. I have no way of knowing whether the right area was biopsied on your MRI assisted biopsy, but I'll tell you what my BS told me after I got unexpectedly benign results and I asked the same question: "With an area that size, it would be hard to miss."

Generally after a biopsy, there is a clip inserted to mark the area. It should be fairly easy to tell if the sample was taken from the correct area.

Hopefully you hear back soon from the breast surgeon and find out what the consensus is among her colleagues. I think we all need to be our own best advocates, and make sure we are comfortable with the information we receive from our healthcare providers, and that we understand what we are being told and the reasons behind a particular recommended course of action. But....we also need to have trust and confidence in our doctors. If you don't, you need to find one that you do. Did your radiologist friend look at your films?

Best of luck to you.

614

Dear Sunrise07:

A non-mass enhancement is similar to a line or hair.  It is very hard to biopsy. 

It is good that you obtained a copy of your pathology report to be clear regarding the diagnosis.  If the report states that the non-mass enhancement is benign then that is positive.  However, keep watching and getting mammograms, sonograms, and MRI's to be sure that you are indeed, ok.  Trust your gut, keep asking questions, and keep getting checked by reputable doctors.

The wondering is the worst.  If your friend is a radiologist, maybe you want to have your friend do the next tests for you.  That would give you peace of mind.

Good luck.