5 years used to be the goal....

Hi. I don't know if this info will help you as my DCIS was ER+ PR+.

I was diagnosed with DCIS in 2006 and had bilateral mastectomy. DCIS returned in 2007 and I had radiation to the chest wall and placed on tamoxifen for 5 years.

10 years later in 2016, I was diagnosed with Stage IV, mets to liver, ER+, PR-, HER2-.

I was vigilant with my yearly check ups, blood work and tumor marker, CA 15.3. There were no red flags during this time.

My MO thinks some cells probably evaded detection early on 2006-2007.

My advice, keep monitoring yourself. If you have symptoms that are not explainable, ask for CT scan, bone scan or MRI. (MRIs are best for brain and liver evaluations.) Find a MO that you trust.

I was diagnosed as I had trouble breathing. The liver mets had traveled to my lung arterioles (tumor emboli syndrome).

Don't be afraid to continue enjoying your life, just keep monitoring, okay?

S

DCIS is not invasive, but it most certainly can become invasive. That's why it's removed and treated - to avoid the development of an invasive cancer. When DCIS recurs, approx. 50% of those recurrences are still DCIS, but 50% have evolved to become invasive cancer by the time the recurrence is found.

That said, based on current scientific knowledge, the seeding of DCIS, i.e. moving some DCIS cells into the open breast tissue, will not create an invasive cancer. The change that occurs to turn a DCIS cell into an invasive cancer cell happens at the molecular level within the cell. The cell develops the ability to break through the wall of the milk duct and survive, thrive and spread in open breast tissue and the vascular and lymphatic systems. A DCIS cell that is displaced or seeded will simply die off, because the cell structure is non-invasive and has not under gone this molecular change.

redgirl, a second diagnosis 25 years after the first diagnosis, and in the other breast, clearly was a new primary breast cancer, a diagnosis unrelated to your first diagnosis. As women, we all are at risk to develop a breast cancer - the fact that we've been diagnosed before (whether with DCIS or invasive cancer) does not make us immune to being diagnosed again. In fact because our breasts have already shown themselves to be a fertile environment for cancer cells, and because our bodies have already developed cancer cells one time, we are more likely than the average woman to be diagnosed again. This risk increases as we get older, just as it does for all women; women are at greatest risk to develop breast cancer in our 60s and 70s. For those of us diagnosed previously, who already have a higher risk than average, our risk is greatest at this age.

I was diagnosed in January 2014 with right-breast DCIS, grade 3 with necrosis. I had a lumpectomy and radiation. Almost six years later, it has not recurred, but I was diagnosed in September 2019 with left-breast DCIS, grade 3 with necrosis. Not a recurrence, but a new occurrence on the other breast. There's always something to worry about, whether or not the original cancer recurs.