Hi there,
My mom had a lump in her breast (fibroadenoma) which was removed by surgery in 2009. Couple of weeks ago she experienced a lump of circa 3cm again in her left side of breast, went to doctor and mammogram was done again followed by needle biospy. Mammogram shows she has one big and 2 small lumps in her left chest. Although the biopsy report does not say anything about cancer, but doctor said she doubts my mom might have breast cancer. Further doctor said my mom needs to under go surgery to remove those lumps and while she will be in operation theatre and on anesthesia, they will send the removed lumps to labortory to have examination of tissues (URGENT), and if its benign then they wont take any further steps but if its cancerous they will romove it. This way my mom does not need to be operated twice in worst case scenrio.
I am bit confuse here, is not the biospy of the fluid taken by a needle enough to tell doctor whether its cancerous or not? As i said earlier biospy is ok, but doctor is more concerned about her mammogram.
So which tests provide better guidence, is it mammogram or biospy?
Having done all these tests still doctor saying she gonna send the removed lumps for final results!!!
What does it mean? can some one clarify.
Thanks for your help.
Mammography is used as a first test for older women because it is fairly simple and quick, ultrasound is more detailed and is used as a better judge of density, shape and size. When they do a biopsy they take a small sample of cells, those cells are used to determine if there is cancer present in that bit of the fibroadenoma. Once this kind of lump gets to 3cm doctors like to remove them because other tumours can grow in behind them. Fibroadenomas are benign but cancer can grow on them/next to them, so I suspect the doctors are just making absolutely certain that your mum will be ok. I’m 22 so at low risk of BC but I’ve chosen to have my four fibroadenomas removed (one approaching 3cm, the others about 1cm) because my mum has BC but plenty of women never have them removed and don’t have any problems.
It sounds like she’s got some really good people in her corner, you should be glad, I hope she’s doing well and I hope the surgery goes well and they don’t find anything bad xxxx
@ Sailor-Girl thanx for ur reply God bless you. I read her biospy report it did not say anything about big C, however it says “severe actue inflammation” which could be due to those lumps.
Apparently they took 9 slides of sample and one the basis of that biospy report it looks ok. But mom’s cnsultant still shows some reservations and says she needs to send the lupms for further examination after surgery.
If mammogram & biospy report is ok, can still doctors have doubt of breast cancer?
thanx again for your reply.