My 19 year old daughter has discovered a lump which has been diagnosed as a fibroadenoma, it is 18 mm in size. She had a wide bore biopsy (not sure what that is ?) today and will get the results soon.
She wants the lump removed, as she does not want to have to worry about it growing etc, and I can understand this. The radiographer today suggested unless the biopsy shows ‘funny’ cells, there would be no need to do anything about it. Can anyone advise what the best thing to do is, and whether she will be offered a removal or just told to leave it and wait and see?
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If removal is an option it would perhaps be better to have it done before it grows any bigger as a larger fibroadenoma could cause a slight disfigurement. It may be your daughter would like to have it removed because she doesn’t like the thought of it being there.
Thanks Cherub, what I’ve read suggests they only take them out if they’re bigger than the one my daughter has, so she may have to live with it. Although I think she’d prefer it out now, as you say she’s not happy with it being there. We should get the results of the biopsy early next week, so we’ll know more then.
I feel stupid for posting, and for worrying because we know it’s benign (well almost 100% sure) and there are many here being incredibly brave and dealing with horrible situations so positively.
Thank you x
Hi Lily, i had a Fibroadenoma a few yrs ago & was reassured that it was safe to leave alone. However, 18 months later i found i had breast cancer in the same area & i ended up having a mastectomy as it was a large area of DCIS (early breast cancer cells in the duct) with lots of invasive cancer cells in it. I found it hard to believe that all of this could grow so quickly after the fibroadenoma. With hindsight i so wish i had had it removed but at the time i didn’t fancy a scar around my nipple, if only that’s all i had done! Although benign i wonder if having a fibro is still indicative of abnormal changes & therefore perhaps better removed for peace of mind? Rosie
Thank you ChoccieMuffin, thanks for your kind words.
And Rosie, what an awful time you have had, I have read a few stories of people developing cancer after fibroadenomas - it certainly makes you wonder whether there’s a link.
I hope that your treatment is finished now, and that you are in better health.
Lilly, bc is sadly so common you can’t assume there’s any link. There are probably many more women who have a fibro but who don’t go on to develop bc but they wouldn’t be posting on here. As a group the posters here are skewed so can’t be used as an indication of general population. In case your daughter gets worried about it.
Lilly where I we would normally only remove an FA if it was over 3cms or if it was actively growing… So if uoyr daughter feels it’s getting bigger she can go and get it checked again and if growing rapidly they may be willing to remove it, but ver often the get to a certain size and then stop growing… They are fairly common and as CM said there is no link to BC, more women who on have BC will have FAs.
There are certain types of cells which are associated with BC or a possible tick f BC in the future but FAs aren’t one of them.
Rosie dcis is very early cells and on Mammo th smallest area of abnormality is normally at least 3mm but sometimes more so if it was a in area it could have been there 18 months earlier but jus not visible in Mammo… When cells are growing they grow from microscopic and double in size evey few weeks or months and it can take many many years to develop to the size of even a full stop… So potentially the dcis was there at the time of the FA but just not big enough to show on the Mammo… Hope that makes sense.
CM - of course you’re right -I’m only here because I had a scare myself a couple of months back, so probably wouldn’t have posted about my daughter’s issue if I hadn’t sought out this site then. So most people with benign conditions probably don’t post at all.
Lulu, thank you for the info, it is very helpful. The thing is my daughter only noticed the lump when I was telling her about my suspicious lump that appeared in a routine mammogram, thankfully it was only cysts, so she started to check herself then. She has no idea whether it is growing or not, although I’m assuming it hasn’t grown all that much since November or she would have been aware.
Well - we had the results today. It is a fibroadenoma, and its totally benign, and even better, because of where it is situated they want to remove it. So we are very happy, again, as my daughter was very concerned about leaving it in situ. She is relieved, I am over the moon, as I felt we could not be lucky twice.
Thanks everyone for your kind comments, and I wish everyone the very, very best of luck in their journeys with this awful disease.