Birads-3 worried while waiting to take the next exam

akar

I am 34 years old, I had some complains about breast pricking pain during my chums. I spoke to my physical and she quickly examined my breast. She said she found many lumps and asked me to do breast examination. I did breast examination and got my results. The results stated there is negative in left said breast and it is just a breast tissue. But the mamogram and the ultasound found that my right breast shows from the nipple an ovoid , circumscribed, nonvascular solid mass with measurement of 1.25 cm in size not palpable. It gave a category of Bi-Rads3 and follow up after 6 months. This kinda made me feel nervous more than nervous worried. I scheduled one to one meet with the doctor and explained my anxiety. I dont have any family history of cancer. I have fibroglandular density breast. Doctor did mention there is nothing to be concerned , but keep monitoring it. I am bit anxiety person and i cant take whether it is benign or not benign as a waiting period. seeing my anxiety she recommended a breast surgeon. I have been through various forums and articles. Though some people say not to worry, but i am still not comfortable to wait for 6 months. is anybody in this forum who have gone through this stage and have any thoughts that will help me to calm down. I am really worried about this and dont know what to do to the next step. Thank you, and much appreciated to read my topic.

aven

Hi Akar:

If you are "an anxiety person," and can't get any relief you need to get a biopsy.

Before you do that, I would ask the doctor WHY he is not concerned (e.g. your mass is "non-vascular" - is that a good thing or a bad thing? "circumscribed" - is that good or bad? etc.) Go through each word with him. Ask how many of Birad3s in his own experience turned out to be cancer etc.

I had Birad3s for 3 years before my biopsy, which revealed benign changes.

akar

I dont have all those information. Infact doctor just gave me the report and said there is probably a small lump and not a mass. I have read biopsy is a solution to anxiety, but the same i dont want to do biopsy if this is a benign. Do you say that benign can become cancerous and this can be found only by biopsy?

Thanks,

aven

No, just the opposite. If you are at an established cancer center, you need to trust that they know better than you and let it go for 6 months.

In my case, they happened to be right in their judgment.

---...---

If you can't trust your doctor's judgment, you need

1) a second opinion at a place whose judgment you can trust.

If there is no imaging (ultrasound, mammogram, MRI etc.) you will ever trust, you need

2) a biopsy, so that you have something other than the images to go on.

If you don't trust the results of a biopsy, you need

3) a mastectomy.

See, how there is trust at every step of the way? And how trust is balanced with a concern about unreasonable surgeries?

You need to find out what level of trust is right for you and that's all inside.

akar

Awesome that makes lot of sense. I am new to this doctor but she seem to be honest on what she is saying. My husband keep saying i am making it a big deal out of it. But i can only follow what my inner mind says and thats why i wanted to meet the surgeon. Before i do that, i thought i will post my fear in this forum and see what i hear from good people . I also dont understand what does it mean by non vascular? Any thoughts? I think i will schedule appointment with my surgeon so i can get more clear answers.

Thanks

Moderators

Dear akar,

We are glad that you reached out and we hope that you get some answers here that will ease your anxiety. Here is a link to our main site about the BIRADs system. Good luck with your appointment. The Mods

Zaranth

Do you have copies of your mammogram and ultrasound reports? If not then get copies from your doctor. With these you can find out a lot of information on line about the terminology used just by plugging the terms into google. It sounds to me like what you have is a cyst, and since it's only BIRADS 3 your doctor just wants to keep an eye on it. Generally, the terminology that is a warning sign of cancer are words like 'spiculated' and 'ill-defined' masses. This means they are irregular or uneven in shape (on an ultrasound image they will look wider at the bottom than the top, and may look like they have branches) and are often (though not always) a sign of cancer. What you described sounds like a well defined mass with a regular shape, most likely a cyst. You have not been sent for a biopsy because they don't worry about anything under BIRADS 4 or 5. Even the majority of women who are sent for biopsies don't have breast cancer. There are a lot of conditions that can mimic breast cancer on mammograms and ultrasounds. One web site that came up on a lot of my searches was Moose and Doc there is a LOT of good information here. Take a look, it will help you understand.

MTwoman

akar, non-vascular means it doesn't appear to have it's own blood supply. Vascularity raises the suspicion of breast cancer, non-vascular is a sign it is most likely benign.