tight final margin after mastectomy?

Hi,

I only had a 1mm margin as well after my mastectomy.  My tumor was not large (.7mm) but the surgeon said I was so thin that there wasn't the usual fatty cushion all around to separate the tumor from the chest.  I don't know at this point what they will do.  I think they are still considering doing radiation when I get finished with the chemo (I've only done 1 treatment out of 6 so far.)  But. . . my tumor was in the inner quadrant of the breast right near the cleavage area, so the onc said they might not want to do the radiation being that it is so close to the heart.  I don't know.  I figured I would worry about the next steps later.  I will post back on here if I find out more, but I think radiation is usually strongly considered wtih tight margins.

Me too. 1 mm margin after mast. But mine was DCIS at the margin. I think it may be different if it is invasive at the margin. Mine was in upper inner quadrant too. No radiation according to BS and onc. They didn't even want me to see radiologist. They said 50/50 chance he would recommend radiation and they didn't want me to have to go through that. Had implant reconstruction and rads really complicate that.

The larger of my tumors, 2.5 cm was close, 1mm front.  They called it cancer present up to a 1mm front.  The wat they explained it was they got the tumor but since it was so close to the chest wall there is always the possiblility of the one that got away.  They considered it a somewhat clean margin but without removing muscle from my chest wall, which does not prove much benefit, I told them I wanted to be as aggressive as possible.  So I did 4 rounds of chemo and 38 rounds of rads with an Ebolis pad every other day and every day during the boosts.

It was tough but I am glad I did it as I think it gives me better odds.

Do what you have to, you're doctors work for you.  If you want aggressive therapy they need to help you investigate your options.

Tina