How are mets discovered/diagnosed?

SoozyCue

As in, do doctors look for them automatically or only if you report symptoms?

For many months, I have every now and then fell short of breath or felt different pain, almost cramps, while breathing. Also for many months, I have been asking my husband when I am going to stop coughing (from the last cold, several months ago).

On one hand, I don't want to miss anything. On another, I don't want to be one of those people who reads a list of symptoms and starts identifying with them.

MelissaDallas

I'd mention it to my doctor before my surgery so they could do any scans they though necessary before the mastectomy. Have you had only mammogram and biopsy

buttonsmachine

I think the general rule is that any new symptom lasting more than two weeks should be reported to your MO. If you are high risk for mets you might get regular scans, but many people are only diagnosed with mets when they become symptomatic. I second what Melissa said too.

Racy

As you are newly diagnosed, full body scans should be part of the standard protocol in staging your cancer. Ask your surgeon if s/he intends to do scans and if not, why not?

SoozyCue

I’m going to call first thing tomorrow

Peregrinelady

Scans may be part of staging in Australia, but they are not standard in the U.S. as far as I know, unless maybe when there is lymph node involvement.

SoozyCue

I'm surprised to read that only because I also joined a Facebook group, and the women there make them sound somewhat standard. As a matter of fact, someone who just responded to me this morning said that the pet scan might have saved her from paralysis, because they found mets in her spine that could have created extreme complications during the surgery they originally planned.

vampeyes

I am sorry you have found yourself in this "club".

For me because I didn't have lymph node involvement so there were no other scans. I had a mammogram and ultrasound only.

An ER doctor did a CT scan for breathing issues, found spots on my spine and lung. They say spine is arthritis and a CT scan in another 6 months to check the lung again.

I am in Canada.

bevin

hi, I am in the USA and staging scans were part of my original diagnosis. I find that pretty much the norm here when you have invasive cancer. Ask your doctor, advise your symptoms and ask them to definitively rule lung issues out with a scan. Good luck. I hope you are well.

Peregrinelady

Maybe it depends on age, what state you live in, and your particular oncologist. No one suggested scans for me at all, even with a 2.5 cm tumor. I did not want any at diagnosis because I remember my sister having a PET scan that was clear in September and mets the following May, so I don’t see the point unless you have symptoms. I did have an abdominal CT before DIEP and a chest CT when I had a pulmonary embolism. I asked the ER doctor if she could ask the radiologist if he/she saw any signs of mets and she said they didn’t. She was underestanding because she was a BC survivor. I would definitely ask if I had persistent symptoms.

buttonsmachine

It's interesting how everyone has such different experiences with this. It seems like the standard of care would be more uniform. I'm in the US I had no scans at first diagnosis - I was stage 1A and node negative after surgery. I only got a PET scan after my local recurrence. Now that I have recurrent breast cancer I get scans regularly.

SoozyCue

Melissa, I'm sorry, I never answered your question.

I had the mammogram and ultrasound the same day since I found a lump. I had a biopsy a week later and an MRI a little over a week after that.

The MRI showed nothing in my left breast, which really surprised me, since I feel a difference in that one lately, too. Because of other medical problems, I know my body very well. The surgeon was surprised I felt the first lump. Now that I read how sneaky ILC is, I'm really concerned about the recommendations my surgeon has made to date. It just seems like he is being WAY too passive given the whole picture.