How long has tumor been there?

Shelly - I had "acute" dense breasts with benign masses in both breasts...I also had very high estrogen.  My BS thinks mammograms missed my bc since 2010...I was dx in 2013 with stage 3.  I was so pissed to hear this because if this is true, my grade 2 was growing and spreading for nearly 3 years. 

I had a thermogram as an extra backup in 2012 and that too missed my bc.

I too find it confusing when I hear about bc growing for years...this doesn't make sense given the different kinds, hormone status, and grades of bc.

Different types (DCIS, IDC, ILC, IBC) have different rates of pressnting/growth.  I think there is still so much that is unknown, unfortunately.  I can only speak for myself - I never had any breast issues (no 'lumps' ever) before a node enlarged literally overnight.  I'd had my annual mammo less than 6 weeks before and it was the same as had been 'forever'.  It took me a week to see my PA (she was on vacation and I didn't want to see anyone else) nd had a new mammo, US and biopsies that afternoon with getting the path report the next morning at 8 - as expected IBC.    17 days later started  neoadjuvant chemo.  

There is so much that is unknown but I do not think anything was ever hidden from me or my Drs were just  guessing. 

i too wonder about this.  In 2006 the surgeon was worried about my right breast Even though I had gone there because of a lump on the left. One mammo and ultrasound and several biopsies later I was told it was normal breast tissue.  I did have however, very dense breast tissue.  This was  brought to my attention by the radiographer. Roll on 2012 and I have a whopping 6cm and some!  tumour.

I did ask my surgeon was it missed and she replied with all those investigations - no.  But I have also heard, like so many others that this tumour was probably there for years It troubles me too. I really don't know what to believe.

What are we to believe? 

I have to add my journey here also.   For at least 10 years I had had a mammo every 2 years.  When I was finally diagnosed, the surgeon told me due to the type, grade and extent of spread, he said it had been there at least 8 years before they picked it up.  So in other words the previous 4 mammograms had missed it.  I have become wary of mammograms now and always have an ultasound also.

Ched

Please pardon my intrusion on the Stage III forum, but I saw the thread and I have done a bit of research on the topic, so I wanted to reply. 

As we all know, breast cancer is just an umbrella term; there are many different types of the disease, but they all share the same name. The traditional statistics that are thrown around, most often by breast specialists, is that a tumor has been there for 6-10 years. Well, the problem with that range is it relies on old data that was compiled when "breast cancer" was thought of as one disease. The data reflects a "traditional" breast cancer patient which is someone who is many years post-menopausal, with a Grade 1, highly hormone receptor-positive, HER2-, Luminal A tumor. Those tend to, but not always, have a very long doubling time (which is measured in days). For clarity, the longer a tumor's doubling time, the longer it takes to increase in size. In our case, as breast cancer patients, we want a long doubling time; a low or short doubling time means this thing is growing quickly. There are quite a few publications on the doubling times of breast cancer tumors and it's estimated that a Grade 1 tumor that is ER+/PR+/HER2- and in a post-menopausal patient (so, likely a Luminal A cancer) has a doubling time (DT) of approximately 180 days and sometimes quite a bit higher than that, many times upwards of 400 days. I read that the average DT for a Grade 2 cancer is said to be in the range of 120 days, and average for a Grade 3 is estimated at about 60 days. However, there are LOTS of variations in there based on hormone receptor percentages, abundance of HER2, patient's age, genetic factors, KI-67 score, etc. But, it's the more "traditional" breast cancer patient (the post-menopausal woman with a Luminal A tumor) that is referenced when we hear the typical "breast cancer takes 6-10 years to develop before it's usually big enough to notice." Those stats are a catch-all and don't take into account the more aggressive cancers. Being a BRCA1 mutation carrier who was diagnosed with triple negative that was also basal-like at age 34, I wondered how long this thing had been there. I knew not long because I could see it growing in the 5 weeks between discovering it and the excisional biopsy. I was reassured by my team at the NCI CCC where I had treatment that it was less than a year old because of my particular circumstance. Interestingly, I've since learned that for BRCA mutation carriers, the mean doubling time was 45 days with the average for mutation carriers diagnosed under age 40 to be 28 days. I know that I'm in the minority here because of my age, my BRCA status, etc; I'm the exception, not the rule. 

Oftentimes, our physicians will shrug us off when we tell them that this thing came out of nowhere, but for a great deal many of us, that is kind of the case. Sure, the 6-10 years statistic is valid for many women, but not nearly as many as we are led to believe. As I said, those old numbers are akin to us being told that there's no variation to a diagnosis of breast cancer, and we all know that simply isn't true. Excluding IBC since it behaves completely differently in the sense that it involves the skin and usually doesn't present with a lump, the spectrum of doubling times can be anywhere from ultra-super-fast-growing 28 days, all the way to a very indolent and slow-growing 400+ days. We, as individuals, can fall anywhere on that spectrum. One study revealed DT's to be as low as 10 days and as high as 7,051 days.

I'm sorry this was long, but I hope I was able to add to the discussion.

No problem, Momine.

Glad to help, kathec.

Hi, 

I have to add to scary.

I have been doing u/s on a yearly basis since 2004-5 to monitor my benign tumor on my leftie. I didn't go for a couple of years an my last u/s was in march 2013 which came out clear with a new cyst where I found my BC lump. I got pregnant in October of last year and miscarried at almost 9w. 

March 2014 I was dx with BC. So assuming that my last u/s was correct indeed, I became a stage III high ER/PR dominance in a year's time.