What does LCIS look like on MRI?

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Mommato3
Mommato3 Member Posts: 633
edited December 2016 in LCIS (Lobular Carcinoma In Situ)

A little over two and a half years ago I was diagnosed with IDC and had a UMX on my right breast. I've been getting imaging (mammo/US) every six months on my left breast because it is very dense. This year I finally agreed to have an MRI on my left breast. Two weeks ago the breast MRI came back suspicious. I did have a reduction on my left breast last year so the area on the MRI could be trauma from surgery. I had a mammogram and ultrasound two days after the MRI that didn't show anything abnormal so I'm scheduled for an MRI guided biopsy later this week. My MO said that she believes IF the suspicious area is anything that it would be LCIS. Here is what the MRI said.

There is focal heterogeneous nonmass enhancement with persistent kinetics measuring 8 x 9 x 14 mm in the upper-outer quadrant at the 2:00 position middle depth. There are no other areas of abnormal enhancement in the left breast. There is no evidence of abnormal chest wall, pectoralis or axillary enhancement.

Can anyone please tell me what their LCIS looked like on MRI? I've been freaking out about this for last two weeks. I'd finally been feeling better about my initial diagnosis...then this happened. Thanks!

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  • leaf
    leaf Member Posts: 8,188
    edited December 2016

    LCIS is an odd duck. Just about everything about it is controversial. Its thought to be diagnosed roughly ~7 times less frequently than DCIS (so its probably uncommon).

    Obviously, I'm not a physician, let alone a radiologist, let alone an MRI of the breast specialist.

    However,

    This recent paper said LCIS is not associated with any clinical abnormality or imaging findings.[4] [7] It is usually found incidentally in biopsies and is associated with an increased risk of bilateral malignancy.[3] [8] [9] It can be found in up to 3.6% of breast biopsies and is multicentric ∼68% of the time and bilateral in ∼30% of cases.[3] [8] However, the actual incidence is unknown because in most cases, it is not detectable by imaging methods.[4] [10] (Emphasis mine). https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/...

    Sometimes/often LCIS is not found AT the lesion that prompted the biopsy, but adjacent to that lesion. Presently, the only was for sure to know you have LCIS is to take a sample of tissue and look at it under the microscope.

    My LCIS was found because I had a biopsy for 'suspicious calcifications' on a routine mammogram. But, as the snippet of the paper pointed out, we certainly don't know how many people are walking around with LCIS and don't know it, because no one has biopsied every part of their breast, (though it is often multicentric and sometimes bilateral.)

    They don't know a whole lot about LCIS by itself (without DCIS or invasive cancer). It seems the risk for breast cancer recurrence goes down with time after invasive breast cancer (and usually starts out MUCH, MUCH higher than the risk from LCIS). But the risk of breast cancer from LCIS (at least without DCIS or invasive breast cancer) DOESN'T seem to go down with time. I've certainly seen papers that say that LCIS when diagnosed with invasive breast cancer doesn't seem to infer a greater risk than the same invasive breast cancer withOUT LCIS. But LCIS is darn hard to study, is pretty uncommon, and there isn't much data. Thus handling situations that involve LCIS are controversial.

    Best wishes,

    Leaf

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  • Mommato3
    Mommato3 Member Posts: 633
    edited December 2016

    Thanks for the info Leaf! I received my biopsy results last night and it showed no cancer or precancer. I did a lot of research on LCIS and saw the same results you did. However, some of the articles talked about low levels of activity and persistent kinetics can be LCIS. That's why I was really worried.

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