Atypical Intraductal Hyperplasia

I think it depends on your health history. Do you or your family have a history of hormonal cancers? I would guess they are taking a wider sample to remove as much of the atypia as possible. What does your gut tell you. I would have a hard time with the wait and see theory, but we are all different. Best wishes.

Momoschki is correct. they excise a wider area around where the needle biopsy was done to insure there is no DCIS or invasive cancer found in the area of concern. the goal is not to remove all the atypia. ADH is not detectable on imaging so there is no way to know if all atypical cells are removed.

i'd recommend UT Southwestern. they are the only NCI designated cancer center in the area. I'll bet they have a high risk breast program.

Hi Helen, I'm sure that medical students don't assist in surgery.  At a teaching hospital, you could have a surgical resident or a fellow assisting.  I had two surgeries at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and the one thing that bothered me was that they were kind of secretive about who might be assisting, I guess because the patients in NYC are snobby about having other than the surgical attending doing the surgery, so they keep it hush hush (disclosure:  I work in a teaching hospital).  I never asked the surgeon, but when a fellow (they don't use residents there, only surgical oncology fellows) came to prep me prior to the surgery, I asked if she would be assisting, and she was vague about it.  It was clear to me that some fellow would be assisting, but maybe not her.  When I went into the surgical suite, both times, the attending was present, but no fellow.  I know that she remained there, because she (the surgeon) was able to describe the procedure and what she did (which was a bit challenging the first time), but I'm sure that there was assistance.  I don't even care that they have fellows assisting, after all, they've gotta learn somehow.  I just felt uneasy about the secrecy about it.  I could have asked the surgeon at some point later, but I just forgot about it.  After the second surgery done there, I had some kind of odd reaction in the eye a few hours later.  I called and tried to speak to the fellow on call, and not the surgeon, but they pulled the surgeon OUT OF the surgical suite to call me back.  So, that tells me she was very involved.  That I appreciated.

I liked the Fellow who did my ovarian cancer surgery so much that when I went for my first follow up & found his fellowship was over & he had moved away to start a practice I googled him and mailed him a card telling him how grateful I was for his help and how his sense of humor had made me feel better in the hospital.

Hi Leaf, it's possible, even probable, that medical students play a minor role, as you stated, because they do have a surgical rotation among the rotations that they do go through.

And Grammy, they don't necessarily "remove" all of the atypical cells.  They do the excisional/surgical biopsy to determine if there is any DCIS or invasive cancer present.  They were doing that back in 1999, so you could have had the excisional biopsy to follow the stereotactic biopsy, but they didn't recommend it for some reason. I had my first surgical excision in 1995 for atypia.  Your story does prove that atypical cells do put you at risk for cancer, although it's not always true that it appears in the same spot as the atypia. Glad you had no node involvement.