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patsue
patsue Member Posts: 3
edited June 2014 in IDC (Invasive Ductal Carcinoma)

My sister was diagnosed with microfocal DCIS in 05 and recieved a masectomy and tram.  She found a lump in her chest wall at the masectomy site and had it checked out.  A core needle biopsy and surgery followed, now they said she has ICD.  The doctor said he nor his college ever has seen this because there should not have been ducts left, but evidently they left breast tissue in.  He said he believes she's probably a stage 2 now and the prognosis is 80-85%, but he just doesn't know, because he never had this happen.  Does anyone have good news!  She has more surgery next week to remove everything that has been left in.  Her tumor is 2 cm. with only 1mm margin.  We really are trying to stay positive but it is so scary because we don't know if this cancer has been growing for 4 years.  Plus every year they never checked her masectomy side because they said there was nothing left to check!  Thank you for any repllies!

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  • Beesie
    Beesie Member Posts: 12,240
    edited September 2009

    I'm so sorry that your sister is going through this.  It's not as unusual as you might think. Hopefor30 is absolutely right that there always remains some risk of recurrence, even after a mastectomy.  I had a mastectomy for DCIS and I was told that my recurrence risk is about 1% - 2%.  This means that of 100 women who have mastectomies for DCIS, 98 to 99 of them won't have a recurrence, but 1 or 2 of them will.  When you consider the number of women diagnosed every year with DCIS (almost 60,000 per year in the U.S.), you realize that while the odds of a recurrence are very low for any one individual, in actual fact about 600 - 1,200 of the women diagnosed each year, who have a mastectomy, will at some point have a recurrence.  And when there is a recurrence after an initial diagnosis of DCIS, in about 50% of cases the recurrence is not found until it is invasive. 

    Good luck to your sister with her treatments.  I hope all goes well and soon she is NED again!

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