Positive sentinel node and DCIS

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Hi,

This is my first post: hope this is not too confusing, I had a sentinel node biopsy done on 18128 on the left side as I wanted an immediate breast reconstruction at the same time as mastectomy. Unfortunately the node came back positive with 2.9mm of cancer so I had a radical mastectomy and no reconstruction on 519. The results came back this week and the removed breast+(DCIS 38mm) was tested 3 times and only DCIS was found and all the lymph nodes removed (11nodes) were clear. This puzzled me as the sentinel node result shows cancer and I did ask if this was a false positive because I have read that some cancer cells may have broken off during the biopsy of the DCIS lump and travelled to the lymph node, which could result in a positive node. Or it could be that I have invasive breast cancer but the pathologist just cannot find it. The sentinel node was retested as there was no invasive element to test in the breast for markers and it shows oestrogen +ve, progesterone receptor +ve and HER 2+ve. I have been recommended chemo, radiation, Herceptin and possible Hormone Therapy. This sounds a lot to me especially when they cannot find any invasive cancer in the breast?? But I cannot ignore the positive sentinel node which points to invasive cancer. I start chemo on 3/3/09 on FEC at 3 weekly cycles 6 times. I’m scared and am still wondering why the results do not match, but I think over treating is better than under treating as I have 2 very young children that need me for a few more years, so I just have to do what the doctor recommends. Has anyone any advice to help? Many thanks.

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Just bumping this up for you, as I see no one has answered. I think this new website seems to result in a lot of new posts getting shunted down the pile before anyone has a chance to answer. Hope someone reads this and can offer some advice.

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Thanks for bumping up. It is a very difficult choice when the sentinel node is positive and all the rest of the nodes are clear with the breast testing as DCIS only. I have got some advice from the USA website and I feel I should take all the treatments as an assurance policy, rather like over treat than under treat and regret it, even though it may be possible for the sentinel node to be a false positive.

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Well - possibly, just before you finally accept the awful treatments, which it would be awful to have if they really aren’t necessary if the sentinel node may be a false positive - is it possible to test it again? I don’t know if they can do that but it does seem strange and as far as I know very unusual to have no invasive cancer in the breast yet, apparently, a spread to the lymph node. Is there any way they can recheck that before you go down the route of more treatment?