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Invasive lobular cancer and treatment choices
Breast Cancer | Last Active: Nov 21 6:58am | Replies (56)Comment receiving replies
I was 71 when I had a double mastectomy for ILC (it took 6 months to get clear enough margins because it didn’t show on the mammograms and ultrasounds I’d had for decades). As a large breasted woman, I was immediately relieved not to have breasts. While it’s not for everyone, I am fine being flat (stay away from princess seams) though it really rankles me that I had to make the decisions at all. Proper imaging (MRIs) would have found it years before it metastasized into my lymph nodes. Now, I will have it for the rest of my life.
Replies to "I was 71 when I had a double mastectomy for ILC (it took 6 months to..."
mjwhearts22, I am sorry that you had to go through the trauma of having ILC that metastasized into your lymph nodes. I am grateful to the radiologist who for some reason didn't like my mammogram and insisted that I get ultrasound. which found suspicious calcifications. At that point she insisted that I get a biopsy, which revealed the ILC. It isn't usually found by mammogram. More women need to be getting screened by MRI.
Thinking of you and so agree with you regarding imaging. My ILC with MRI was shown to be much larger and helped with surgery. I still opted for lumpectomy (58yrs old). After surgery margins weren't great so I did boost radiation followed by Letrozole which has now pushed me into osteoporosis so I'm going to start Fosamax. My oncologist at Dana Farber fought me on MRI surveillance (I asked for after annual mammo - 6 months alternating) - I told her I'd rather deal with reoccurrence when tumor burden is low. They simply cite academic articles reporting mortality not much different with early detection. What? How'bout what is better for the patient. All we have is early detection!
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I’m sorry . It’s a horrible type of cancer that the normal mammograms and MRI can’t find. I was lucky the radiologist found one of my tumors with ultrasound sound. I had to have the mastectomy to get clear margins. Sending you positive thoughts!