I Can't Seem To Get A Straight Answer From My MO...

edwsmom

Hi all,

I want to pose a question to see if anyone has had a more productive conversation about this with their doctors than I've had - or have found a resource about this that they have read.

My question is, if you have cancer found in your lymph nodes what is the process or how does it move to other parts of the body? Is it after it's been in the nodes for s certain amount of time? After it's spread to a certain number of nodes? If it's broken through the node to the surrounding tissue? And, if it's broken through the node to the surrounding tissue, how much invasion into the tissue spreads it? How does it travel - via the blood?

I know this is a complicated question and may not have a simple answer, but has anyone been given any information about this topic?

I was diagnosed with carcinoma in a lymph node via biopsy (after noticing the enlarged node on a mammogram). The node was not enlarged on the mammogram I had a year earlier. Due to family history I had BMX and ALND. They removed 21 nodes (basically all of the first/second levels of nodes, I was told). The pathology came back that no cancer was found in the breast at all, but cancer was found in TWO nodes. In one node the cancer had broken through the node.

I had neoadjuvent TCHP chemo and I'm now doing radiation on my entire left lymph area and the full left breast.

My MO is quite tough to talk to (eastern european stoic type) so I can't seem to have any productive conversation with her about this.

Any help to understand this a bit better is appreciated...

Valstim52

I'm not an expert, though by education and trade, I'm a research pathologist, trained to dissect tumors, blood etc, organs, disease, past and present. . Currently not working in my field. Here is what I do know, and my MO also explained it this way.

the job of lymph nodes is to hold and catch disease and infections, BEFORE they spread to other parts of the body. They are our bodies filter system. For everything. She told me that a cancerous lymph node does mean a progression from the breast, but most of the time it's held there and they can dissipate or filter out. I tend to agree, and feel better about this, because some people show no cancer in their lymph nodes, but in a short time have metastasis in other parts of their body. Which means the lymph system did not 'catch' it or could not hold it. Why we don't know. She repeatedly tells me that the BEST (if there is such a thing) about breast cancer, is the actual organ is outside of your body, not an internal organ, so the lymph nodes serve as a blocker so to speak.

bottom line: we just don't really know. Or we would have a cure, or a vaccine.

Sorry you can't talk to your MO.