Pre-op Metastatic Workup

operamom1

Hello! I have newly diagnosed Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. They found it on a routine mammogram, and biopsy showed 9mm er/pr+ her2-

This week, in preparation for upcoming surgery -- lumpectomy and SNB -- I was given CT and MRI. The CT came back clean except for the tumor in my right breast. The MRI, however, came back showing a 7mm abnormality in a lymph node. I have been trying to find out how often MRI's come back with false positives, or if something can show on the MRI but not on the CT.

I met with my MO this morning and she had not seen the CT nor MRI reports. I couldn't get an answer from her, other than she kept referring the the pathology results we will have about 3 days after the surgery, about the possible LN involvment. She seemed pretty confident that with a cancer as early as mine that we would not be looking at lymph node involvement.

I hope others can weight in with their experiences. Did you have suspicious looking nodes on MRI that turned out to be nothing?

Moderators

Hi Operamom and welcome to Breastcancer.org,

We're so sorry to hear of your recent diagnosis, but we're really glad you found us. Our Community is full of very knowledgeable members, always willing to offer advice, share their experiences, or support you. You're sure to get some helpful responses soon!

We look forward to hearing more from you and supporting you as you navigate your diagnosis and treatment.

--The Mods

ksusan

Hi. My MRI showed a suspicious node that unfortunately was accurate. Neither the node nor the IDC showed on mammogram.

Outfield

When is your surgery? There's really no way to know until then. MRI's aren't perfect, but they're the best for the situation. I've never seen data on the percent of false positives for lymph node findings, only on other findings in the breasts (lots and lots of us have had pre-op MRI's where something is found on the other side).

They'd want to do a sentinel node biopsy even if there were nothing on your MRI because scans just aren't the same as looking at the tissue. The waiting just sucks. The worst time for me was the week between getting the diagnosis and my surgery.

operamom1

My surgery is scheduled for Monday, 2/5. It's painful to wait, but I completely understand why it's important to wait until the tissue has been analyzed. I wasn't able to find any stats on false positives for lymph node findings either, which is why I posted. There's such a wealth of knowledge and experience in these boards that I was kind of hoping for some reassurance, or at least something to hold onto.

I appreciate you taking some time to write!