I have looked this up on this site via search but haven’t found anything.
I have my lumpectomy booked next week and the day before I have to have an nuclear injection into my lymph nodes so they can take a sample during the op and check to see if the cancer has spread.
Has anyone had this treatment. It looks straightforward ie injection and then a scan but it would be helpful to know what to expect, how long it takes, and whether I will feel ok afterwards.
thanks
Hi what your having is a sentinal node biopsy, a blue dye is injected near your tumour site and if the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes it will show up.Afterwards you will notice you have blue wee i wasnt told about this so was a bit of a shock. Goog luck with your treatment. julie x
I’m wondering if you have got it right that it is a nuclear injection. This is usually what is done for bone scans - you have the injection then have to wait 3 or 4 hours before the scan, and is always done in the nuclear imaging unit.
The die for biopsy is just a harmless coloured dye as far as I know, given during the surgery. In may case the dye was used to identify the nodes to be removed - but maybe you are having a different procedure?
Hi saffronseed
I had the nuclear injection the day before my lumpectomy. I went to the nuclear medicine dept and like you was a bit uncertain what was about to happen.
All that happened was that I lay on a couch and the injection was inserted just above the nipple. It only took a few seconds.
Next day the surgeon injected the blue dye at the time of the op to locate the nodes. Only two were removed as I had investigation of nodes using microbubbles a few days before, which appeared clear.
Hope this helps.
Good luck.
Alison.xx
Hi,
Yes,I had this before my SNB.Just to warn you the dye they inject turns that part of your breast blue and it stays like that for several months,but does eventually go.
Good luck with the op.
Helen xx
thanks for responding to this its helpful to hear from others who have been through it. i will look out for the blue wee and blue breast!
i only had one blue wee and no blue breast i think everyone is different, i had the nuclear injection its exactly as the previous posts described, not pleasant but its not painful
sue
Hi, I also had this injection. It stang for a few seconds but was fine.
I also had blue wee but no blue breast, although I did look a bit smurflike after the op. Lol.
Good luck.
Debbie. xx
The injection is a radioactive isotope used to map the lymph nodes. It is given before the op, in my case during the morning. The dye is injected during the op, so that the surgeon can actually see the sentinel node. I found this article on the internet. It explains it better than I can:-
hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/html/slnb.html#2
My hospital had the equipment to test the sentinel node during surgery, so that another op would not be necessary. If the bc had spread to the nodes, the surgeon would remove them at the same time. Fortunately, in my case, it had not.
Good luck.
Ann x
Hi
I had the radioactive isotope the day before my SLNB and like others have explained, it is injected into the breast near the nipple, and then I had to wait for 20 mins for it to spread into the lymph system, then I had to lie under a gamma camera for 4 different scans (2 x 5 mins & 2 x 1 minute) for the nuclear med chap to track where the radioactivity was heading. At the end he marked up in black felt pen where he thought the sentinel node was lying. This is one way of locating the sentinel node, the other way which improves the accuracy is to track the blue dye which is injected when you first go into the op theatre. I think that the two procedures together imrpove the chance for the surgeon to get the sentinel node rather than relying on one or the other. I didn’t realise before hand that this was the case - the way it was explained to me left me thinking that it was a radioactive blue dye that I was getting the night before the op. Hope it goes OK - I was in at 7.30 am and home by 1pm.
Cheers
Maggy
I had blue poo as well as blue wee! My children were fascinated!
thanks again for the responses. Its re assuring to understand more about exactly what will happen and it doesn’t sound too bad on its own - I am obviously more worried about the lumpectomy the following day - and am trying to focus on this in a postive way in that it will get that evil nasty thing out of me… which if I could I would get a knife to myself! But then the wait for the results which I know will be the real killer but heh one step at a time…
Hi,
I had this done in April 2008 and I scared a few people as my face was blue too until later that day and the blood coming out the drain was bright blue - what a princess :)They do it when you are asleep as I was told the dye stings. The nuclear part did not hurt and it was making sure no-one pregnant or under 5 came near me for the rest of that day and until I went in. I had to wear a warning wrist tag so the operating staff knew my blood would be radioactive and take appropriate precautions if pregnant. The radioactive material is taken up by the sentinel node and then they use a geigacounter which crackles and tells them which one/ones lead off from the tumour. My chest was blue for about 6 months!The op is very fast and you are under for a very short amount of time so little side effects. Anyway lots of luck to you and welcome to smurfworld where they turn you blue. Mine was done on April fools day so telling everyone I would be blue and radioactive meant everyone laughed their heads off when I told them!
Love
Lily x
Blue wee and blue breast (still have that 4 months later and am told by surgeon that I may always have a blue tinge!)-still, its a small price to pay and makes for a good story at dinner parties!
Good luck
I had the nuclear injection and waited for an hour or so in the ‘Radioactive patients’ waiting room, and used the ‘radioactive patients only’ loos!
I was assured that it would be flushed out of my system (ie no longer radioactive) after 8 hours or so. I alos had a scan to make sure it was working, and had the blue dye in the op - it’s a doubly sure way of identifying the right nodes. Only peed a bit of blue, nothing on my breast.
mine is the day before the op so if it flushes out in 8 hours it will be gone before my op which isn’t until the afternoon of the day after…so whats the point?
Oh, maybe it’s a different procedure or I’ve remembered wrong… sorry, didn’t mean to cause alarm.
Now I think about it, mine was only done in the morning cos it was a Monday op and they don’t do the injections on a Sunday - so if I’d had it done on the Sunday it would have been way more than 8 hours… Or maybe it was the chap trying to reassure me cos I didn’t like the idea of it. It’s 6 months ago and much happened since - sorry.
its ok… I will ask at the clinic. I am sure they wouldnt give it me if it was going to disappear before the op!(i hope)…
But yes sometimes they tell you things to put your mind at rest ie don’t worry it will disappear in 8 hours… maybe it does last a bit longer I will let you know what they say
i just noticed that lily said she had a drain. This hasnt been explained to me - will i have a drain after the lumpectomy if so how bulky is it. The intention is I have a lumpectomy at the same time as this procedure (blue dye stuff). Any nodes needed to be removed will be done so at a later op.
Lola, I remember that too now, mine was a lovely shade of turquoise!!
Debbie. xx