Hi all,
I’m new to this forum. I have been diagnosed with grade 2 invasive ductal breast cancer ER positive, HER2-ve as well as DCIS high grade in November 2022 and had surgery on 28th of December. Unfortunately the tumour did not show on mammogram and I had a delay of 3 weeks because of MRI scanning which only showed the invasive cancer, not the DCIS. Pathology from surgery showed that tumor was multifocal (x2) and DCIS area was much larger than expected (3.7 cm), invasive cancer foci were 15mm and 1 mm. Two out of 3 sentinel lymphnodes had micrometastases and most of the margins were full of DCIS. Therefore re-excision is planned for this Friday coming. Because I caught Covid beginning of January the surgery has been delayed for five weeks.
I’m very anxious that the breast is full of DCIS which does not show on any imaging (have dense breast tissue) and don’t know whether to go straight for mastectomy rather than do up to two further breast preserving surgeries if need be before doing mastectomy. Surgeons clearly want to do breast preserving surgery.
I’m also extremely worried that all the delays in moving on to adjuvant therapies is reducing my long-term survival rate. The surgeon has talked about radiotherapy plus tamoxifen for 10 years, but I will only be referred onto oncology/radiotherapy when all DCIS is out and it looks like there is a wait for radiotherapy.
I am awaiting oncotype DX test results (should be back next week), tissue has been sent after disappointing results of first surgery and not sure whether chemotherapy also needed now.
Has anyone had similar experience?
thanks