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Types and Stages of Breast Cancer Questions about the different types and stages of breast cancer. |
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| Asked | Publicly Submitted Question | ||
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| 1/5/2012 | I had a 1.5 cm recurrence in remaining tissue from the same breast that was removed close to 10 years ago, which tested HER2+++. My surgeon did not check my axillary lymp nodes because they had already been chedk 9 years ago and she thought this was dangerous. Instead, she took a piece of tissue from near the arm pit for testing -- which came back negative. She did not test my intermammary lymph nodes either -- my tumor was located in the inner-middle portion of my breast (closer to my sternum). All she told me was that there was no lympho-invascular invasion and I was stage 1. How can she be confident I am stage 1 if there were no lymp nodes tested? All I had was a Pet scan which came back negative. | ||
| Replied | JHU's Breast Center Reply | ||
| 1/5/2012 | More than likely she is relying on the Pet scan having nothing light up in the area of the axilla or in the sternum area. It is usually not advisable to try to surgically remove the intermammary nodes. This is a very invasive procedure. plus there is no way to identify any of these as a sentinel node either since the breast for all intentive purposes isn't there to inject for lymphatic mapping. So the bigger question might be what does the medical oncologist recommend now doing? if ER neg with HER2 positive then a discussion about chemo is possibly in your future. If ER positive then hopefully hormonal therapy will be your new best friend. | ||
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