Roberta2

Thank you for your concern.  Surgery is tomorrow afternoon. Phone conference was today with doc to discuss the conversation he had with medical review board conference today.  He said there was a pathologist there as well today.  They ALL agreed they believe this is more than likely cancer.

Surgery--A pathologist will be there during surgery.  IF they belive it is benign, they will close me up and wait for official pathologist report which he said still could show cancer.  IF they believe it is cancer during surgery, then he will remove the main lump and try to get clear margins, remove the smaller lump, remove the two lymph nodes on the other side of the same breast, and remove lymph nodes from under the arm.

Ohhhhhh, one more thing all of the above is in the right breast.  He advised me today that MRI show two SMALL areas in the left breast.  For now, he probably will not do anything on it until they find out what is going on with the right breast.

Bottom line--They will not know 100% until they remove it tomorrow at the earliest. 

Thanks for all of your support and prayers.  It should be out patient for now.  Yes, two small areas on left breast.

This originally was one lump in the right breast (original cancer side) to another small lump next to the larger one, to two possible lymph nodes in the breast which did not look right, to if cancer will do lymph node dissection, to two small areas in the other breast.

SUCKS!  Worst thing is that after fine needle biopsy (fluid), after MRI, and after core needle biopsy (tissue), they still do not know what is going on...Geezzzzz somebody come up with a decision either way already!  The waiting is the absolute worse! 

Checking in on you also.......

UPDATE:  doc called said the pathology report shows DCIS with small amount of invasive cancer towards the chest wall.  He is waiting on the futher testing for monday for the hormone receptive, HER2, etc.  They have scheduled a cat scan and body scan for this coming wednesday.

Margins--he preferes to have 2 cm and most of it was, but two small areas.  Therefore, he wants to go back in to take some more, do the two lymph nodes on the bresat, do the left breast for two small areas.  He wants to consult with the medical review board again to see if he should do the auxillary dissection of the lymph nodes under the arm.

Having extremely hard time explaining this whole scenario to family and friends.  After surgery this week, husband called everyone and told them the doc said defininetly no cancer.  Which I told him  there was no way he said that because on Monday beforfe the surgery the doc told he did not want to give me false hope.  Otherwords, even though he and the pathologist believed it to benign during surgery, possibilty still could exist that the final pathology report could still come back as cancer which it did.

Roberta, I'm so sorry!  What crap news.

questions:  first cancer to my knowledge they did not test hormones, etc. because early DCIS even though had to have mastectomy.

This time they are testing hormone, HER2, etc.  What should I be looking for?  Otherwords, what is the best answers on the testing that I would hope for?  Also, I am pre-menopausal, does this make a difference on chemo treatments/medications?

Give me your view on this:  They belives this to be a recurrence of the original DCIS cancer because it show DCIS this time but a small amount of invasion.  First cancer, no chemo, rads, or medications.  How aggressive do you think they will be considering cancer again?

sending cyberhugs to you Roberta.

More questions:   Path report show lymphatic invasion present but no vascular invasion.  If I understand this correctly, there is invasion so far in the fluid that could lead to the lymph nodes (no lymph nodes taken yet but having another surgery next friday),

First--Path report does not really show the staging yet, not sure if it will when the hormone test, dna analysis, ki-67, etc. is done.  I know if there is an invasion outside of the orginal area, I believe it would be considering stage one now unless later shows lymph node involvement.  Is this correct?

Second--how important is the lymphatic invasion?

Third--What does the DNA analysis show?

The findings show infilitrating ductal carcinoma, intermediate combined score, 1.2 CM size (I believe this means the infilitrating portion is this size), with associated component of intermediate nuclear grade DCIS (this is why they believe recurrence from orginal DCIS) without necrosis. FYI--doc said the infilitrating portion was center of the tumor but located at the bottom of it near the chest wall.

Oh my gosh, I am so sorry and how terribly confusing. I wouldn't dare chime in on anything as I just can't imagine as this is just so much information and confusing. I'm sure someone will write in soon who knows more or the chat sounds good. It the waiting and just not knowing and understanding what all you are dealing with. I am so sorry and I hate you are having to deal with all this so soon. Keep us all updated. Thinking about you....

hugs!