Saroma

It’s spelled “seroma” (literally “mass of fluid”) and can develop at the site of ANY surgery involving tissue removal (my husband had a seroma after a hernia repair). Nature abhors a vacuum, so when a cavity is created by surgery, it gets filled in with “serous” fluid (as opposed to lymph or blood) as a sort of cushion to prevent further injury during healing. If it’s deeper inside (like after a lumpectomy) it may be annoying or even enlarge after radiation, but will eventually either fully resorb or stabilize permanently. Remember how your mom used to tell you not to pop a blister, saying “if you leave it alone, it’ll go away?” A seroma is basically a great big internal blister—and a blister serves the very same purpose: a fluid cushion acting as a buffer to prevent further injury or infection. If you keep an eye on it and examine it (via mammogram) every six months or so to see if & how much it’s shrinking, you will be fine. (I had a 16cm seroma inside my breast after lumpectomy; after a year it was down to 14cm; at 18 mos. post-op it’s 10 cm). Unless it is very close to the surface and has the potential to rupture and become infected, a tumor-cavity breast seroma is almost never drained, lest it get infected and keep refilling.

OTOH, you can get an axillary (armpit) seroma after a sentinel node biopsy. It tends to be closer to the skin, and because of clothing and normal movement rubbing against it often feels more bothersome than a breast seroma—and if the SNB incision is not securely healed, the incision can rupture and the axillary seroma leak or even burst—as mine did 3 wks. post-op. My SNB incision (as are most) had been glued and steri-stripped closed rather than sutured. But my breast, being huge & heavy, actually pulled it open. Normally, axillary seromas are left alone rather than drained because of the danger of infection; when they burst they are most often left open (packed with sterile dressings several times a day) and allowed to heal from the inside out over the course of a few weeks. But mine would never have healed unless all the leaking fluid was pressed out and the incision sutured, because my breast would have kept pulling it open. Because it was pressed dry and sutured, the incision healed within a week and a half; and the seroma itself had disappeared by six months after that.

With a breast seroma, don’t mess with it unless you absolutely have to. Mammograms or ultrasounds press on it and feel uncomfortable, but are necessary for proper periodic observation. They don’t become tumors.

I developed a seroma after one of my surgeries. I chose not to have it drained, but to just wait and see if my body would absorb it naturally. After about 2 weeks it went away on its own. Have you tried that, rather than having it drained by the doctor? I'm just wondering if it would be more effective.

I had to wait for mine to go away before beginning rads.

And welcome Joanie!

oh man, Aquilegia, that's not encouraging! My PS drained both of my breasts when I went last week for my first fill, but I can tell he's going to have to do it again next week. I was hoping there would be less fluid this time, but it doesn't feel like it. Guess I'll find out tuesday