QuestionQUESTION: My wife was diagnosed in July 07 with "triple negative breast cancer". First round of chemo "TAC" did not work. She had a mastectomy done on her right breast. Surgeon could not remove all of the cancer cells from skin tissue. Cancer started growing into small tumors within weeks. My wife just completed 7 weeks of radiation and during the last week she found a lump in her left breast. Same type of cancer. She has started Xeloda with Avastin. Last week she noticed a lump along the incision from her mastectomy. Is is possible that cancer cells can still grow in an area that has gone through radiation?? Her radiation treatments finished about 2-3 weeks ago.
ANSWER: It is not probable but I can not say that it is impossible especially since I do not know if this new lump really was covered by the radiation field. Make sure that it is checked with a needle biopsy ASAP! Your wife is really having an extreme piece of misfortune! Is her left breast taken care of now? What else is being done and what is planned?
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: She is taking Xeloda (14 days on, 7 days off) and Avastin (once every three weeks). Removal of the left breast was not reccommended by the doctors until her entire body has been treated with chemotherapy. Her lymph nodes under her left arm also tested positive. Her doctor has stated that if the Xeloda and Avastin does not work, he will move on to another drug. Surgery will take place if the tumor in her left breast continues to grow.
In regards to the new lump along her incision, we met with her doctor's assistant (doctor was out of town) and she referred us to the breast surgeon who removed her right breast. He feels as if it is scar tissue. My wife states that the medium size marble lump was not there before. He did not want to do any tests on it at this time.
ANSWER: Scar tissue is a possibility, but you can always ask for a second opinion. I'm somewhat surprised and disturbed by the fact that nothing is happening surgically to her left side tumor. Is it too big? Maybe you should ask for a second opinion there too!
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: My wife just finished her radiation about 3 weeks ago. Is there a time frame that needs to go by before they can do surgery to the other breast? The doctors are concerned that they need to treat the entire body first to make sure there are no cancer cells floating around. She had nine different areas mapped out for radiation. This did include an area in the middle of her chest because her internal mammary nodes showed up positive in the scan prior to the radiation. Her skin is still healing. Her doctor did discuss her case with the doctors at Johns Hopkins. They are all in agreement that surgery should not be done at the present time. Having a new cancer show up in the opposite breast within 6 months is hard to believe. The doctor does believe that this is a "new" cancer and that it did not travel from the other side. How do they know this?
AnswerThey do not know that but statistically and probabilitywise it is MOST probable! It is more probable than a daughter tumor there from her first. Well not really. Has her left breast been irradiated in any way? If not I can see no reason not to take her new tumor away surgically unless her general condition is too bad for surgery?! Thanks!
