Lymph nodes removed but not cancerous.

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Gamopa
Gamopa Member Posts: 1
edited June 2019 in Surgery - Before, During, and After

Hello everyone,

During surgery the pathologist found my sentinel lymph nodes cancerous and subsequently eight of my lymph nodes were removed. We were told I would probably need chemo and radiation. However two weeks later the final lab report said all lymph nodes were actually negative. Is this type of misdiagnosis common? I am upset because now I am at risk for lymphedema. Has anyone been through the same experience? Thank you for helping out.

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  • Meow13
    Meow13 Member Posts: 4,859
    edited June 2019

    I would be angry too. Did the surgeon make that call in the same procedure?

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  • AliceBastable
    AliceBastable Member Posts: 3,461
    edited June 2019

    If the dye lit up the sentinel node, a lot of surgeons will take the next cluster of nodes for pathology. It's not a misdiagnosis, just a preliminary diagnosis based on the information available during surgery.

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  • gb2115
    gb2115 Member Posts: 1,894
    edited June 2019

    My understanding is that the quick check the pathologist does during surgery is just that, a quick check. Then they send it out for official results.

    Celebrate that they all came back negative! I'm not sure how much that increases your lymphedema risk, but with a sentinel node biopsy, the risk is always there. Even with the unavoidable few removed. I had 3 taken out and I do have drainage issues on that side. And other women have more removed and never have problems. You just never know.

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  • letsgogolf
    letsgogolf Member Posts: 263
    edited June 2019

    I also had 8 nodes removed and didn't quite understand how that happened because I went into surgery expecting to have only 1 removed. As my doctor explained it, they don't know how many nodes they are removing. That is only determined when they are examined under the microscope. After they inject the dye and wait 5 minutes they use some sort of device kind of like a geiger counter and they remove a pad of tissue within a certain range of the highest number that registers on the hand held machine. We all have a different number of nodes in that area and a different number of sentinel nodes. Some only have 1 and some have several (sentinel nodes that is ). At least that was my understanding. Maybe someone with more knowledge will explain it better.

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