Writing for my daughter as she doesnt have confidence to ask herself.
She found a lump accidentally about 3 or 4 months ago and finally agreed to see a gp after my nagging. She is only 23 and has never actually checked her breasts. The lump was about 3cm and easily found, but not mobile. She was told to monitor for 6 weeks. 6 weeks later, another visit back to the GP and saw someone different. This GP noticed changes to her nipple (slightly inverting), and also stated the lump was fibrous and not a cyst. She made a referral to the breast clinic. I went with my daughter last week for her appt at the clinic and at this appt, the examiner found a second lump under her arm and also noted full nipple retraction in the affected breast. The 2nd lump was not found by either of the previous gps so we do not know how long it has been there. She had an ultrasound, then a mammogramm, then had 4 core biopsies taken. She was given an appt to see the breast surgeon next week to get results.
The consultant on the day of the tests would only say it looked highly suspicous and suggested she talk to her director of studies (she is in final year at uni), regarding late submissions etc. She said they would tell her more next week after they had agreed the treatment plan at the weekly mdt meeting. I was with my daughter for this consult and asked what treatment would be needed if it turned out to be benign as would be expected due to her young age. The consultant would not be drawn on this and just looked sympathetically at us both. Obviously, nerves and emotions run high on such a day so I am thinking, and hoping we are reading too negatively into this omission of positivity.
The wait for results is agonising as is to be expected, but all the statistics are stacked in favaour of it not being anything dodgy so we are not panicking yet. However, I spoke to a breast nurse a couple of days after the tests,and although no results were in, she did say that, becaue of her young age, her birad score was given at 4. No idea what she meant by the age thing and she did not say whether it was 4a,b or c, but I did read a birad 4 was more likely good news than bad so it kind of contraditcs what the consultant was suggesting. The nurse also reiterated my daughter needed to talk to her university and said the clinic could write in support of mitigating circumstances or anything else if needed, again kind of contradicting a low birad score.
So what my daughter really wants to know and dare not ask is:
Is it usual for the clinic to suggest the worst when statistically the worst is very unlikely?
could something benign like fibroadenomas cause all this, and/or what other good outcome suspects could it be?
if it is all benign will her nipple come back out or is it hiding inwards forever?
I am hoping someone on here has had similar experiences and can help me with how to handle this. I am naturally very optimitistic, but I have a nagging feeling that something is just not adding up here and I dont know whether to be worried or continue to hang onto the statistics that say she is simply too young to have anything nastsy.
nb: There is a long history of cancer of both sides of family but none of breast cancer. I myself had cancer when my daughter was 1 yr old, but that was Thyroid, so my daughters risk profile is very low I think.