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percy4 · October 2014

percy4 · October 2014

For those of you who know me, you know this. For those of you who don't; here it is. I had low-grade DCIS with a tiny, non-aggressive microinvasion. When they did my breast MRI upon diagnosis (which I insisted upon) they incidentaly saw things in the part of my liver they could see. This happens a lot. Many of us (all people) have benign stuff in their livers. Harmless fat, cysts, blood clusters, that they would never have known they had. The joke is that "imaging is the gift that keeps on giving". Still; they (the HMO) were good. I've had 5 liver imagings since then, basically because if a tiny thing is unidentifiable, they need to see if it changes. Cancer grows. So. After having my 6-mo. after-treatment mammo, and that being clear, the final liver MRI was my last thing. It has not grown, and has been deemed to be innocuous. I just want all of you newbies out there to not get scared to death about incidental findings. They are common. I have to say, however, that getting the all-clear on my liver was great. It was the last thing, seperate from careful future breast screenings, in my BC episode. Yes! So; please take incidental findings in your stride. Unfortunately, though my kids were great, they do not get that I have a little PTSD. They do not get that I have lost a little trust in my body, which I know will come back after time. That is why I am still so grateful to be here, with women who understand how that feels. xx

Ariom · October 2014

Yay percy! That's wonderful news, so pleased for you! Great post!

percy4 · October 2014

Thank you, Ariom. You've been a rock. xx

april485 · October 2014

Wonderful news Percy! May you be blessed with perfect health moving forward. xo

Beesie · October 2014

YAY! indeed. Great news on the final liver scan.

And great advice about not being scared to death about incidental findings on imaging. Having gone through that myself (Gee, is that spinal mets that is showing up on my breast MRI? Fortunately, not!), I know exactly what you mean. And that's why PET scans and CT scans aren't usually done on early-stagers. They lead to a lot more incidental findings - which then need to be checked out further just to confirm that they are really nothing at all, and that involves more testing and lots of stress - than to real findings of something of concern.

ballet12 · October 2014

Hurray for you!! Hope things go smoothly from hereon out with follow-ups!

WinningSoFar · October 2014

Percy, that is great and great advice on the incidental findings. One of my false alarms was suspected met in back muscle, which turns out to be misregistration between PET and CT.

lane4 · October 2014

So glad to hear the good news, percy! And thank you for sharing your hard-earned wisdom!

mrenee68 · October 2014

Percy- that is wonderful news! Thank you for sharing and giving all of us perspective on our follow up tests and scans. Take care!

percy4 · October 2014

Thank you all, my dear friends! I did not say in my Post, but after the good liver imaging, the radiologist suggested that my pancreas was a "little diffuse" so the doc oredered a special pancreas immune blood test. Just got THAT back, and it's fine. Still; so true; when they look for one thing they so often see another. But now, I'n DONE! Done, done, and done! I'm really happy. Will have to be vigilant for always, but now I feel I've had my (minor, thank Goodness) BC, and I am moving on with my LIfe. I am confused about one thing, though, and maybe Beesie can answer this. For me, early detection meant a lot. When I hear from women with higher-staged BCs from the beginning, they seem really unhappy about the "myth" of early detection mattering. I get their feelings, if their BC was found from the beginning to be big or aggressive, but what's the truth? Why do they feel that early detection being good is not so true?

percy4 · October 2014

Though, really, I guess I get it. If a BC is found early (as in the case of the women here); great. If it is not seen with screening until it is no longer early, not so great. That must be it. What is needed? What better screening could there be to prevent early BCs being missed? Good screening is kind of my agenda, now.

Beesie · October 2014

The problem with early detection is that it doesn't mean that we caught a cancer before it spread. Yes, that's a possibility, but there two other possibilities.

First is the current belief that many early stage cancers may never progress at all - they will always remain early stage and harmless. So in those cases, we may simply be putting women on the breast cancer treadmill for no reason at all - and subjecting them to life altering surgeries and unnecessary treatments and tests. This is a particular concern with DCIS, particularly small, non-aggressive diagnoses of DCIS. But it's a also a concern for small invasive cancers, many of which might never progress to become anything worrysome. So in these cases, early detection is kind of irrelevant, because the cancer will never become life-threatening.

Second are those cases where the cancer is very aggressive, and the spread starts well before the cancer can be detected (based on current screening/diagnostic capabilities). Only 5% of breast cancers are detected at Stage IV; most invasive breast cancer is detected "early" - the latest stats show that 61% of invasive breast cancers are "localized" at time of diagnosis. Yet up to 30% of early-stagers (and I believe about 10% of Stage I) will develop mets. In almost all cases, the first few cells that moved out of breast did so before the cancer was detectable. And those cells were strong and aggressive enough to survive any treatments that were thrown at them. So for these women, early detection has done nothing at all.

Which leads to these questions:

For those whose breast cancer is detected early stage and who survive long-term, did the early detection make a difference or would their cancers never have become life-threatening anyway?
And for those whose breast cancer is detected later stage and who go on to develop mets, would early detection have made any difference, or because of the aggressiveness of the cancer, had the mets started to develop right from the start?

.

So yes, better screening is necessary, not just to catch cancers that are missed but to catch aggressive breast cancers before they can spread, which can happen before the cancer is visible in the breast, even by the best screening methods. Blood tests, perhaps? But even more importantly, we need to continue the work that will help us understand, once a breast cancer has been detected, whether it's one that will ever become life-threatening, or whether it can be safely left alone (or minimally treated).

Alpineartist · September 2015

Happy for you, Percy! I admire your vigilance, and for bringing up the topic of incidental findings. It is very interesting. And Beesie, through your gift of distillation and articulation of medical info, we can all see the landscape before us more clearly. -So glad that you are willing to share.

Life and health to all.

Kay

Hello, again, and YAY!

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