Recurrence & breast MRI's

[mts]

I have often stated what happened to me - and wonder how many other women have or could have this happen to them.
My cancer was invisible on Mammo and Ultra Sound. After my first lumpectomy (clean margins, neg nodes), I had an MRI. Then 2 more tumors were found and hence another lumpectomy was performed.
My medical oncologist agrees with me that the MRI saved my life. And the radiation would probably not have destroyed the 1.6 cm tumor the MRI picked-up. I now get MRI's every year...

How many women with local recurrences are actually original tumors to begin with?

Maria

[jhandley]

Hi Maria

I am certain that my "recurrence" was there the first time. it didnt show up on mammo or ultrasound but core biopsy.
Jackie

[Unregistered]

A close friend had 2 tumors detected with mammogram and ultrasound and then found after MRI that there were actually a total of 6, and she had a bilateral mast with reconstruction.

[Unregistered]

My dcis and 7mm tumor were not detected by mammo

[sarah]

My invasive cancer actually only showed up on the biopsy - I had a cyst and they removed it and checked for cancer. MRI showed some inflammation which could mean cancer or not but no sonogram or mammography showed the cancer even when they knew where it was! so yes, I vote for MRI and PEtscans. Why wouldn't the radiation have killed the tumor??? That surprises me.
sarah

[Lani]

It discusses a case missed on all other scanning which showed by pre-op PET and discusses "recurrences" due to missed primaries

Everyone involved in this is on a learning curve...as our advances in technology outpace our knowledge of the implications of their findings

I liked the fact that there were no false positives causing "wild goose chases" in this series when comparing PET with CT, bone scan, etc

Lani