MRI before surgery

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Anonymous
Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
edited May 2018 in IDC (Invasive Ductal Carcinoma)
MRI before surgery
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  • Texasborn
    Texasborn Member Posts: 16
    edited April 2018

    I was diagnosed 4/20/18 with stage 1 IDC. I have er+ and pr+. Not sure if the HER2 score. I am going to have a lumpectomy in 2 days. Shouldn’t I have a MRI first

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  • Egads007
    Egads007 Member Posts: 1,603
    edited April 2018

    Why not give your BS or MO a call tomorrow discuss? I had an MRI before lumpectomy. My surgeon said it would give him more definitive info beforehand. I assumed it was standard

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  • gb2115
    gb2115 Member Posts: 1,894
    edited April 2018

    I'm not sure it's necessarily standard, but many surgeons do the MRI first. I think it's controversial because of the many false positives and then extra biopsies. That happened to me, did the pre surgical MRI which led to an extra biopsy that turned out fine but which caused an extremely large and painful hematoma.

    Good to get a clear picture but that was some misery leading up to surgery...

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  • VL22
    VL22 Member Posts: 851
    edited April 2018

    I had an MRI pre surgery and wish I hadn’t. My new BS probably wouldn’t have ordered it, but the first one set the appointment, so he was like just go since it’s scheduled.

    It cost me an extra biopsy, which was benign, and a bone scan because of a suspicious spot on my chest bone. Thankfully, that was also nothing.

    This all delayed my surgery by three weeks, during which a surprise cancerous tumor was found that had not shown up on mammogram, us or the MRI.


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  • letsgogolf
    letsgogolf Member Posts: 263
    edited April 2018

    I don't think these are normally done with a small hormone positive tumor. At least I did not have one and neither did my sister who went to a different facility.

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  • Texasborn
    Texasborn Member Posts: 16
    edited April 2018

    thanks I asked my nurse and she said I probably won' get one at this time unless cancer shows up in the nodes.

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  • besa
    besa Member Posts: 1,088
    edited May 2018


    When I was first diagnosed my mammogram showed only one tumor. Luckily i decided to get a second surgicsl opinion.

    The second surgeon strongly recommended I have a MRI because I had heterogenously dense tissue - many areas that showed up as white on my mammogram. I was told that the this made my mammogram harder to interpret. The MRI suggested multifocal bc which was confirmed by a second biopsy. My surgery was changed from lumpectomy to mastectomy.

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  • Runrcrb
    Runrcrb Member Posts: 577
    edited May 2018

    I would ask the surgeon why he/she isn't ordering an MRI and I would seek a second opinion. You do not have to rush to surgery. My initial biopsy led to a IDC diagnosis and a plan for a lumpectomy. My breast surgeon ordered and MRI and the words he used were along these lines:

    "MRIs often result in biopsies of areas that turn out to be benign but I'd rather you have that than have to have multiple surgeries."

    After my MRI I had two more biopsies - both malignant, both ILC, and both in another area of the breast. That changed the plan. I'm glad I didn't have a lumpectomy only to turn around and go back for a mastectomy.

    There is no reason to rush at this stage of the process. You were diagnose 10 days ago, stage 1, which means it's small. I encourage you to take a few more days, get a second opinion and specifically ask both surgeons about an MRI.


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