Two weeks ago I had my first annual mammogram following lumpectomy surgery and radiotherapy on my both breasts last year.
Six days after the mammogram I received an appointment letter to go for an ultrasound this coming Wednesday.
I rang the hospital to ask the reason for the ultrasound and was told a small change has been detected in my left breast, which wasn’t there on the last mammogram (when the cancer was originally found).
As you can imagine my stomach churned and I’ve hardly slept since, fearing the cancer has returned.
The lady I spoke to told me that radiotherapy can result in changes to the breast which will show up on a mammogram, so I’m hoping that is the cause.
I just wondered if this has happened to anyone else?
Thank you.
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Ive yet to find out as my 1st mammogram will be due next month ( not had an appointment through yet though, but was warned it could go over depending on backlogs). I did have 19 fractions of RT though and lots of symptoms since then, so can imagine things may look different a year on. I’ll try not to panic if I find myself in the same boat. Part of me takes scans with a pinch of salt as I found mine in between scans despite it being slow growing. Not everything gets spotted, so I ‘cop a good feel’ regularly just to check.
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Hi @sunshine7
Sorry you’ve been thrown back into this after a routine mammogram 
My team have set up routine mammograms and MRIs for me to check chest wall and my remaining right boob (I had a left side mastectomy). My first annual mammogram this year was clear, but my MRI had an area of “distortion” on my right. Google was not my friend in the 3 weeks following my results! I had more scans, another mammo and ultrasound. I had a consultant doing my ultrasound and so she was able to tell me straight away if she could see anything or not. I spent the whole appointment crying to her 
but I walked away from that appointment knowing that nothing showed up - it was a huge relief! I did have an MRI guided biopsy done as well (came back as benign thankfully), but I was told exactly the same as you- that there had been a change in my breast tissue since my first MRI in 2023 and my one in March 2025. What I tried to remind myself with all the scanxiety going on was: this is the point of our annual check ups, to find these changes and to investigate them. Your team are going to check every tiny detail because of your history, and that is exactly what we want them to do! If anything is found then it’ll be super early stages and you have the head start this time around, rather than waiting for symptoms to appear. I also tried very hard to convince myself of all the hormonal changes I have been through, and these all affect our breast tissue.
I was also told by my team that they would have told me straight away if the cells looked “abnormal”, but they really weren’t sure in my case and didn’t want to let it slide just in case, so they do extra check ups to be sure.
Of course fingers crossed for you that this is just radiotherapy related (and it seems like they are aware of this being a possibility for you otherwise I’m not sure if they’d have told you). Hoping for positive news for you, please do reach out if you need the forum while you’re waiting on results, or give the nurses a call if you need further support 