Cancer back-will radiation and chemo affect my DIEP breasts?

Sorry to hear this news. Chemo won't change them, radiation might...no way to tell. I imagine you'll have surgery to remove lump and that alone would impact the breast.

dogs - anyone who has a mastectomy for an invasive breast cancer, regardless of reconstruction choice, can have a local recurrence as it is impossible to remove 100% of the breast tissue.

NOLA DIEP here. I had a new primary of IBC and had to have my perfectly prophylacticly econstructed breast removed. My spared skin had to go. It sucks. Hopefully surgery to remove the lumps will be minimal.

Before that I had a recurrence on my original cancer side and I ended up needing radiation. It took at least a year for all of the swelling from radiation to go away. The swelling was more like thickened skin. My skin tolerated rads pretty well. Now 2 years out from rads on my remaining DIEP breast I still see the faint 'tan' line. But the skin is nice and smooth and the shape is still great. I'm not able to tell if size changed, as I changed bras and have nothing to compare it to.

Cancer is sneaky and a recurrence is not simply the fault of the breast surgeon (though it can be!). Ladies with DCIS can skip right on to mets. I don't believe my recurrence and new primary is because Dr Stolier did not do a good enough mastectomy; I believe it is because the cancer cells in me are strong and sneaky. My scans and pathology did not indicate any breast tissue was left behind (breast cells remaining are assumed). The more I experience, read up and talk to other women the more I understand cancer is not easy or simple to control. It's good some women are able to have minimal treatment and never experience it again.

I'm so sorry you are in that waiting mode. I know it all to well. I did keep in touch with the Center but my IBC case was so unusual and aggressive they were not able to actually help me. I never even talked directly to my doctors there. Hopefully your treatment is minimal and straight forward.

As a NOLA sister, I'm so sorry to hear this. I also think it might be useful to contact NOLA and get their take on it. Did Dr Stolier do your MX?

TwoHobbies, just curious... did you have radiation both times on the same breast? When I had a recurrence (DCIS), they wouldn't do radiation again and said mastectomy was my only option.

Kristin

We were dx about the same time so I'm shocked the beast returned so soon. I'm terribly sorry to hear this and as others have said, cancer cells are sneaky. I'm just happy it's still in your breast and not metastasized to bones or organs. Prayers for successful treatment and minimal side-effects and most importantly, killing the cancer forever!!

Amy

I am sorry, Kristin, that you have had a local recurrence.

Not quite the same situation, but my mum actually had her BMX/DIEP before she did 6 weeks of radiation during the time of her original diagnosis (she went chemo - MX/DIEP - rads) and while she have some changes to the skin on the radiated side originally, once she recovered from the radiation treatments, there was not like a significant noticeable change that affected her results negatively. Really, unless you really were looking for it, the two sides still looked the "same".

In your case, I would even see if you can go back to NOLA to have your lumpectomies, if it is at all possible, I know from others who have gone through similar they will do the best they can to preserve the results you have, while still of course striving to get good margins.

Chemo should not affect them at all.

For dogsneverlie and others: a mastectomy does NOT reduce your risk of local recurrence (or of a new primary for that matter) to 0, whether or not you have recon and no matter what type of recon! This is not the fault of the BS (at least not usually) but just the fact that not all breast tissue can be guaranteed to be removed (breast tissue actually comprises quite a large area outside of the "breast" you see from the outside), that breast tissue cells, and cancer cells, can lay outside the obvious tissue parts, and cancer cells are tricky...they can already be hiding out outside of the breast tissue in the muscle, skin, etc. Even women who have never had breast cancer, and have prophylactic mastectomies due to BRCA+ or other hereditary risk factors/high risk factors like prior mantle radiation still continue to have a risk of developing a primary breast cancer, and it does indeed happen. I have seen a few members of FORCE who have prophylactic mastectomies, without any prior cancer dx and clear pathologies, end up with a primary later on. Frustrating, but the risk is only reduced by 90-95%, not 100%.

yay for clean brain MRI

I'm so sorry you are going to have those lumpectomies. Yes, it's great news that it is local (such great news!). There is still part to grieve. It will take time and you will have ups and downs. I wish you the best outcome on all counts.