Hi I’ve had 25 lymph nodes out on my right underarm area, 24 with cancer in them. I’m seeking others who have had a large number of lymph nodes out. Anyone out there?
Hey janechapel
I had 30 lymph nodes removed from my right side last August. 17 of them contained cancer.
I couldn’t believe it when my surgeon said he removed 30…I thought 20 was the max anyone had!
Hxx
I had 33 removed, 27 infected.
How many do we have ? I had all of mine removed, surgeon says this is what they do if they fing cancer in any. This was at Queen Margarets in Dunfermline. Are other hospitals different. At post-op doc told me (I thought) that there was cancer in 8 out of 12, but obviously misunderstood, as was subsequently told by onc it was 8 out of 20. So I too thought 20 was what we had.
I had 23 removed, 20 had cancer.
I think they remove all the ones they can find, but not all are easily accessible (e.g. Under the collarbone), which is why we also get chemo and rads afterwards.
We all have a different number of lymph nodes and they do not know how many until they are removed… As you can see the highest number can be up in the 30’s - but it can be as few as 5 or 6… I had a full lymph node clearance - they certainly took a huge chunk away! But they only found 6… (i had a few cancer cells in one…) Also they are not like a line… they are abit more like the roots of a plant so each stem might have a different number on…
Theresa
I also had full lymph node clearance and was surprised when I got my results and they had only removed 9. I thought there would be more. 3 out of the 9 were infected and 1 had spread beyond the node.
I had all mine removed which was 12 with 1 infected.
Hi,
I also had full clearance…29 nodes. 5 had cancer x
My onc told me that there are different levels of clearance and that these are taken out by different degrees of a scooping action. A shallow scoop takes out the top layer of nodes, closest to the breast etc. I asked about this as I had 11 nodes removed (5 infected) and queried why this seemed a fewer number than others who have had nodes numbering in their 20s removed.
Hi,
I had 32 removed all clear , when i asked onc why so many, she said because mine was grade 3, 3cms , aggressive and tnbc , so the surgeon decide while she had the chance too remove them she took it.
Interesting. I was told everyone has a different number of nodes which I found surprising - you’d think we’d all be the same. I was very sore after the op tho. It’s only recently that I am no longer aware of the numbness down back of arm and had op on 4th Jan.
I had level 3 clearance but still only had 15 nodes in total (of which only the sentinel node was affected) We are all different
I had 22 removed, 16 being infected… I believe they called mine full clearance too.
I wasn´t sure howmany we have but it does seem to differ.
Hi. I had one mnode positive but surgeon only removed six, as thats all that could be found ??? cant help wondering if any more were cancerous but not found…just have to think that the chemo got any nasties that were in there.
6 seems such a low number to have ???
I had 19 removed - all clear except the sentinel which had some isolated tumour cells.
I had full clearance too. 24 nodes and 3 positive.
Mal
From what I understood, they inject the tumour with green dye and watch where it goes, follwing the lymph nodes, taking out any which turn green…I only had 6 removed as well with a trace found in one of them, so shoulder being zapped as well…didn’t fancy more surgery to remove the rest
i had 21 removed with 6 having been affected now waiting to hear about radiothephy
everyone has a different amount of lymph nodes. I had a Full clearance and they toook 14, none of them had cancer in them… when i was first diagnosed they told me it had spread to the lymph nodes hence the full clearance,however it was actually a mammory node !!if only they had carried out the sentinal node biopsy as i had requested !!!