Sentinel nodes checked with propylactic mastectomy??

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cindy2
cindy2 Member Posts: 32
edited June 2014 in Stage III Breast Cancer
I am having a mastectomy on my non-cancer side in a few weeks.  Doing this for a number of reasons including cosmetics, need to have biopsies on the non-cancer side, and the fact that the uniboober look is doing nothing for meSmile  The question is, do they do a sentinal node biopsy on the contralateral side during the mastectomy??  There seems to be some controversy and I would appreciate your experiences.  It seems that if they do not do the SNB and they find something in the breast, you have to have an axillary dissection because they can no longer find the sentinal nodes.  But if you do have the SNB and the breast is clear, you are exposed to the risks of SNB (lymphedema) without any benefit.  Any thoughts?  Experiences?
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  • Leah_S
    Leah_S Member Posts: 8,458
    edited May 2012

    Cindy, I'm also going to have a prophy mx soon. Since I have LE already, my BS wants to try to avoid any problems so he sent me for a mammo, u/s, and MRI. He said if all three are normal then the chances of something unseen and invasive being found are so low that we can take a chance and skip the SNB. Mammo and u/s were clear and now I'm waiting for the results of the MRI.

    Best of luck.

    Leah

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