X-ray question due to cough, Called back for Mammogram

Nikitapunch - If it is any help re your question about what might show up on a chest x-ray, I had a large tumor in my left breast (thought it was old fibroadenoma at the time) and got a chest x-ray due to coughing up a small amount of blood. I had had what seemed like the flu and then resolved, but then I developed the chest and cough symptoms a little later. The standard chest x-ray I got at a walk-in clinic did not show any tumor. It only showed a "shadow" on my lower left lung, so they gave me some anitbiotics that cleared up my cough problem. They assumed that my only problem was something like a flu that had become bronchitis or pneumonia.

Take things one step at a time and don't assume anything. Best of luck to you!

nikitapunch, I'm glad everything went well with your callback. I'm in Canada too and I've had more callbacks than I can count. It's usually the process with a callback that the Radiologist looks at the imaging immediately and you are told whether everything is good or whether more imaging or a biopsy is necessary.

To your concern that you didn't notice anything about your left breast and your question about what to look for, there's really no answer. It's very possible that what was seen on your original left breast mammogram wasn't actually anything - many callbacks are caused by lack of clarity of the imaging or because the breast was squished in the mammogram machine in a way that caused the breast tissue to look distorted on the mammogram image. With a redo of the mammogram and a magnified view, the Radiologist realizes that there is nothing there. That could be what happened in your case.

There also are several signs that could possibly indicate breast cancer that are impossible to feel (with a breast self-exam) but that a Radiologist would see on imaging and want to check into. Many women believe that all breast cancer forms as a lump so if you do breast self exams, you'll find anything that develops. Well, some breast cancers form as a lump - but imaging can often find small lumps (from about 5mm in size) that are too small to feel with a breast self-exam, particularly if the lump is deep in the breast tissue or near the chest wall. Sometimes a tiny lump is even too small to be seen on imaging, but it's large enough to cause a small distortion of the breast tissue - and the distortion is what the Radiologist sees that alerts him/her to investigate further. And some types of breast cancer don't form as lumps. This true of DCIS (in most cases), which is a pre-invasive diagnosis, and ILC (invasive lobular cancer). DCIS causes the development of calcifications, tiny sand-like specs that show up on the mammogram - those could never be felt. ILC tends to cause thickening, which can be difficult to notice early on as the cancer develops because so many of us (more than 1/2 of all women) have fibrocystic breasts that regularly feel thick and lumpy and change with our cycles.

So unfortunately even doing regular breast self-exams, you can miss something. Most cancers are found through screening, not through breast self-exams. I've found lots of lumps over the years - all of which turned out to be harmless fibroadenomas and harmless cysts - but I never found my breast cancer because it formed in a way that wasn't palpable.

Glad that your breasts are good. And I hope that you get that cough diagnosed and resolved!

Edited for typos only (I really shouldn't type responses on my iPad... BCO doesn't seem to be set up for typing on iPads.)

Nikitapunch - You are quite welcome. Real glad to hear that things are essentially fine for you. My mother-n-law had an unexplained cough for decades and no one ever knew what it was from. She had been a former smoker, but it had been years and years since she smoked that she developed the cough. It never was diagnosed as anything in particular. Re my own situation, I am fine for now. I wound up going through neoadjuvant chemo, surgery, radiation, and now an aromatase inhibitor, but I'm here and chugging along. We shall see.

Yes, I agree, if they are not looking for something specific on an x-ray, it's likely and understandable that it would be missed. My complaint at the clinic was about the cough and they were looking for something like pneumonia, so not surprised they didn't see the tumor. I don't even know if the kind of x-rays they do for pneumonia and bronchitis even show a lot of other things. I really don't know anything about it all, but I do know that different types of x-rays and scans pick up certain things and not others.

Again, all the best and I'm so glad that things are working out for you.

My MO had me get a non-contrast chest CT before surgery since I smoked for years. My lungs were more or less fine, just a few grubby spots here and there that she said we're pretty normal for my age.

Finding kidney cancer and an aortic aneurysm on that scan weren't so great, but the lungs were fine! 😀

Yep, had a nephrectomy between the lumpectomy and radiation. It was a busy six months! It's weird about CTs, they can find things that have been hiding for years. I guess before we had them, a lot of people were out of luck; so many cancers a symptomless until they're very advanced.