Did your MO order a PET scan after diagnosis? Going crazy.

IDC Sister- sorry that your sister has BC but glad you found this site. SO many wonderful, caring and knowledgeable folks here! I was diagnosed last April and had neoadjuvant chemo like your sister- same protocol, due to HER2 pos status. I did have an echocardiogram and PET scan prior to treatment. As you will find hearing from others- there are many differences in treatment depending on where you are located, doctors, etc. Please keep us posted. Sending HUGS to you AND your sister. My sister has been a huge help during all of this and it means so much!

Hi!

Like Skittlegirl, I had a PET scan before chemo and I had one after chemo. But, I also had an MRI before and after as well. Both of these scanning techniques allowed my MO to see the effects of chemo and whether or not it got rid of the (visible) active cancer (it did). If your sister had an MRI, that might do just as well as the PET. In my case, they showed the same thing.

I also might have gotten a PET because of my tumor's size (5 cm.+). It was one way for MO to determine whether or not my cancer had spread beyond the breast area.

Some MOs are scanners; some are not. There are definitely cons to scanning -- PETs often produce false positives that can lead to extra (and unnecessary worry). My PETs picked up something on my hip that was later determined to be nothing. Best wishes to your sister!

I was Stage II and a PET scan was not recommended because it would expose me to radiation, and the chances of false positive/negative are so high. I also had a positive lymph node 4mm, but no LVI or extracapsular invasion, so it is very unlikely that anything would be picked up on a pet scan. They're usually only sensitive to 1.5cm and larger. My brother, on the other hand, had extensive lymph node involvement that the likelihood of having mets was high, and PET scan confirmed it. There are certain types of cancer that is more prone to spreading, like ILC or triple negative, etc. Please don't worry yourself too much! It sounds like you're already very informed and it's so nice of you to be there for your sister. Wishing her an easy time with chemo! Hugs.

I was diagnosed after a biopsy. My doctors do not do PET scans so I am left waiting to see if any persistent symptoms show up in the future. I have a close friend who had BC in 2006 and had a mastectomy. She has been followed with PET scans and blood tests in the following years with no signs of new cancer. Last May 2015 she felt a lump and her cancer had come back on her chest wall. She had a scan/blood tests two months before that and nothing showed up. I think I am relieved that I don't have the stress and can live my life until symptoms show up. But that is just the way I feel and doesn't mean you should feel that way. Best wishes for your sister. This is a rough journey but we get through it one appointment at a time.

I did have a pet scan prior to chemo had a small spot in liver light up with no corresponding growth seen on ct scan mo was positive it wasn't cancer had another scan post chemo nothing lit up complete response and the slight light up was a false postive

I did have a PET scan before chemo and surgery and thank goodness they decided to do it. It had turned out that my stage 1 was really a stage iv and I was able to avoid unnecessary major surgery and also start a different plan of treatment no one would have known otherwise that I needed.

I did have two different opinions on whether this would have been done from two different centers.

Loving!, Thanks for the clarification. You are correct that it can be more difficult to detect and has a different profile for where it likes to "roam" when it does. But what I have read is that its aggressiveness or indolence is a factor of the tumor's profile along with normal staging factors, not that it is lobular vs. ductal. Sadly, there is not enough research on lobular carcinoma so if that changes, perhaps there will be more information available. That I have lobular and am PR-, both of these being little-studied and understood, definitely made me more agressive when deciding about chemo.
All the best, MsP