How fast did your tumor grow?

pesky904

Apologies if this topic has been discussed before. I was diagnosed with stage III TNBC in June 2017. I found a pea-sized lump in late January and ignored it, thinking it was a cyst. It continued to grow and I had just moved to a new state so I waited longer than I normally would to have it checked out, but by the time I was diagnosed in mid-June, it was 6cm.

Just curious how fast your triple negative tumor grew? How big was it when you found it and how big was it when you were diagnosed?

Flynn

Good question. I had a clear mammogram 6 months before I noticed that one of my breasts looked different. I think because my sister was diagnosed with bc 3 years before me, my OB saw me immediately and I was diagnosed within 2 weeks. My initial MRI put my tumor around 8cm. Another MRI shortly after came in a little smaller but it seems to have been in the 6-8cm range. I guess it’s possible that the mammogram missed it early on but I think it grew really fast.

Vslush

I had a palpable lump that I ignored for almost a year. It just appeared one day and never seemed to change until I finally had it checked. It was 2.8 and 3mm on mammo and US, respectively. I was surprised to find out it was TN, as it didn't seem to change the whole time it was there.

Vickki

pesky904

Interesting. From what I've seen and heard, some TN tumors grow really fast over the course of a few months and some grow initially to a few centimeters and then kind of stay the same.

Mine seemed to grow from pea sized to 6cm over 4 months, but then remained pretty stable as it was about 6cm when I really started paying attention to it in mid-May and was still about 6cm when I started chemo at the end of July. So after an initial period of extremely, extremely rapid growth, it slowed down or stopped growing.

Parrynd1

I don’t know the exact size but in 3 months I went from stage 0 to 3. The first tumor was 4.5cm at that point and there was a second .7cm tumor that developed within a 30-45 day window

moth

My 1.7 cm tumor was removed almost exactly 6 mos after a clear mammogram.

I first felt something around 3 months,waited a month to see if it was hormonal and would go away, saw doctor in month 4, had diagnostic mammo and ultrasound and a biopsy in month 5, surgery month 6. I don't know if it increased much between the 3 & 6 months. It seemed to me to go from nothing to a palpable almond shaped thing right away and then it was sort of the same until the surgery.

pesky904

It’s really interesting. It seems like all triple negative tumors grow fast, but some grow to 1-3 centimeters and others grow to 6-10 centimeters over the course of just a few months. I wonder what makes some of them grow so enormously big.

santabarbarian

I found my lump when I got out of the bath tub and glimpsed myself in the bathroom mirror, as I was grabbing a towel.... my breast had a pink spot on it the size of a silver dollar. It was warm and I thought it might be a breast infection. Poking the red area I found the lump. I took my temp and had a slight fever... felt exactly like a plugged duct to me but not painful, just inflamed. Hmmmm, but I am 56! And my baby is 21! However, Dr Google confirmed that women in menopause DO sometimes get breast infections.

Went to OB the next day; had mammogram, US & biopsy that same day. By Friday, diagnosed IDC and the following week, FISH test came back: TNBC. Tumor measured 3.8 cm at largest dimension per mammo. Within about 3 more weeks I'd also had a MRI and a scan, and by one month post mammo, I began chemo. So it was quick. But when my surgeon and I had our post op meeting she mentioned that the tumor was 5 cm in largest dimension, per early MRI (first I'd heard of that!). So either it grew another cm in under a month or one of the measurements was off.

I could feel it, and it seemed to get bigger, but I thought it could be my imagination. Within a few days the pink spot and the heat went away. I am so grateful for the brief but distinct inflammatory response I had. A, I noticed it. B, I thought it was infected, and I needed to jump on it fast, before it really began to hurt.

Parrynd1

I have also heard that after a tumor reaches a certain size, varies person to person, the growth can explode. It can start growing slowly but after the tipping point it’s like a wild fire. Not sure how this applies to BC specifically so take it with a grain of salt.

TuesdayStar

I found a lump the size of a kidney bean in early October. By the time I started to get panicky that I hadn't gone to the doctor yet it was the end of November and felt the size of an egg. After a couple weeks when I got my mammo/ultra sound it felt bigger (and was discovered to be 3 lumps, one small one and 2 large ones that may or may not be connected). By the time I got biopsy done (1/10/19) and results (1/16/19) and got an appointment with a cancer surgeon and doctor (1/24/19) they told me it was too big to operate and I need adjuvant chemotherapy.

santabarbarian

TuesdayStar, I am glad you found your way here. I recently was treated with chemo prior to surgery. I would have had to have had a mastectomy if I did not do chemo first. My treatment worked incredibly well and my tumor melted. These fast growing cancers can be fast-dying too. Have courage -- and know chemo can defeat TNBC.

TuesdayStar

THANK YOU!!

kber

Grew super fast. Also shrunk super fast with chemo. So here's that.

pesky904

mine doubled in size on Taxol. Shrunk pretty fast on AC