Anyone with lumpectomy continuing yearly MRI?

jessie123
jessie123 Member Posts: 532
edited September 2019 in ILC (Invasive Lobular Carcinoma)

I'm having a mammogram and MRI yearly. Is this normal with lobular lumpectomy patients?

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  • Spoonie77
    Spoonie77 Member Posts: 925
    edited August 2019

    I had a dx of IDC & DCIS and am now getting 3D Mammo and MRI alternating every 6 months. I'm not sure if it's similar for ILC or not, but I believe it's becoming standard of care for younger patients such as myself with dense breasts. Not sure if that's helpful or not, hope others with ILC comment soon as to your particular dx. In either case, IMO, I think it's a sound choice in using 2 different modalities to monitor for recurrence.

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  • Veeder14
    Veeder14 Member Posts: 880
    edited August 2019

    I had a lumpectomy for lobular however I’m getting yearly MRIs and 3D mammograms due to being BRAC2. My insurance pays for it only because of the gene mutation. I’m glad to be checked 2x year. Definitely not standard with those in their 60s like me.

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  • Ingerp
    Ingerp Member Posts: 2,624
    edited August 2019

    Also no experience with ILC, but I was told I'd only get annual MRIs (alternating every six months with mammo) if I'd had any genetic mutations show up. I'd love to be checked every six months but my genetic testing came out fine, so I'll only get annual mammos going forward.

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  • nash
    nash Member Posts: 2,600
    edited August 2019

    I had yearly MRIs after my 2007 lumpectomy, mainly due to the fact that I had a lot of pleomorphic LCIS left over in the breast. Primary tumor did not show on mammo.

    My local recurrence after lumpectomy was picked up by MRI. Mammo never showed it. 3D mammo also missed my 8 cm new primary that popped up out of nowhere in the other breast. That only showed on MRI as well.

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  • jessie123
    jessie123 Member Posts: 532
    edited August 2019

    Thanks everyone--- now that I'm settling down from all the active treatment more questions are coming to my mind. I remember after surgery the surgeon said "we're going to keep a close watch on you". I thought - "that's nice". Now as I'm on the back side of this I'm not noticing a lot of "after lumpectomy" MRI's. My gene testing was negative and my breast are no longer dense (since I'm old now). So since they discovered LCIS during surgery I guess I'm high risk and that's the reason for the yearly MRI. I don't like the idea of still being high risk -- thought I was done with cancer. I think that I'm going to have to consider a future BMX --- as I get older all the testing will be more difficult. I wonder how many lumpectomy people actually have LCIS and it wasn't discovered at surgery. Both of my parents died of dementia at a very old age and I know I don't want that -- it was horrible! Maybe BC would be a better way to go.


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  • Jons_girl
    Jons_girl Member Posts: 696
    edited September 2019

    I was dx with IDC in 2017. I have extremely dense tissue in my 50s. I believe my mom still does too. She’s in her 70s. My tumor I felt in 2017 They of course wanted to do a mammo. It was completely missed on my 3D diagnostic mammo! (They put stickers where the two spots were that they were concerned about. ). Then sent me for diagnostic ultrasound. It saw everything!!! Even the blood source to my 4mm tumor! Very thankful for ultrasound. I know it doesn’t work for everyone on this forum. But it did catch my cancer early.

    I didn’t have radiation so my follow up going forward is: I have bilateral breast ultrasound every 6 mo. My doctor wants me to include another modality once a year. I haven’t decided what that will be yet. But MRI is a option. I don’t trust mammos for my breast diagnostics. But I know they work well for some women.

    Sorry for writing a book.

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