Found new lump after surgery.

Oh that must be worrying - just when you've got yourself settled into a treatment regime.  It may not be another tumour. The main thing is that your team is on to it and it can be dealt with as part of your current  treatment. It would be worth asking whether it's new or whether they missed it on your previous scans. That would help you decide how to have it treated if it is a tumour - for example another lumpectomy or a mastectomy. 

Such a thing didn't happen to me but I know Carolyn28 had a similar problem. She had a second lump but it wasn't removed by the surgeon. I've tagged her so she can explain. 

Now it's nothing to panic over. Just have the scan and deal with whatever that throws up - you can do it. Then I guess you'll move on to chemo.

Wishing you all the best. 

Hi,

I found a small lump after surgery. I had to have an mri and us and biopsy. It turned out just to be scar tissue. 

Cwtches,

Gay xxx

I'd recounted my tales of woe on another thread so I'm going to copy and paste it ... but I can imagine this is a lot more common than we realise ...

Sometimes with triple negative they give chemo first and the theory would be that it would catch everything in any case.

The biggest risk is people who are told they don't need further treatment, low risk of recurrence therefore no chemo required.

Carolyn

xx

anyway ... pasted in

this is my experience 

I hadn't managed to convince my GP there was anything wrong so I paid for a private breast screen, my 2012 mammogram had been reported as 'clear'' something we then discovered was an error. 

The tools and techniques are the same and indeed so are the team, where private treatment wins is time, you just get more time, more time to talk it through, for the team to show you the images and they get more time to consider the images themselves .

Whilst reviewing the mammogram and ultrasound images the excellent radiologist showed me why he was concerned and suggested a biopsy, which he performed. The consultant then gently prepared me for the likelihood of bad news but said although nothing could be confirmed until we had the biopsy results, he'd recommend an MRI to give a clearer picture of what was going on.

As it turned out the biopsy 'only' showed DCIS, the earliest form of breast cancer, again though he warned me that due to the fact we could clearly see by comparing the 2012 and 2015 scans that the affected area had been there for a number of years it was most probably down to the fact it was a large area, 65mm, and they'd only taken 3 tiny samples. 

I was transferred to the Royal Marsden in London for surgery as we didn't have a local surgeon.

The MRI was then reported by two separate radiologists, my private guy and the top team at the Marsden. 

My private guy had seen a separate suspicious lesion in the other side of the same breast but the Marsden team didn't spot it.

The upshot was when the surgeon performed the surgery he followed the Marsden report and focused on the main 65mm area cutting neatly around the second lesion leaving it in my breast. As luck would have it it had actually popped up as a proper lump and it was painful, and it was only the pain that lead me to pursue a full review and get a proper diagnosis .

That lump might have easily been left undetected. I do wonder how many recurrences are actually just lumpectomies performed on what is thought to be an isolated area 

The radiologist showed me the staging scans and there was no mistaking the new tumour, it was lit up like a lightbulb.

Talk to the team, talk to PALS and politely request a review and more scans if you feel you need them. 

I was actually treated pretty well after I complained. The oncologist was more than happy to see me at the end of the session so she could donate more time to me, I needed a heavy dose of reassurance after what had happened. 

It probably is less likely to get a false positive than a false negative but I'm sure it's happened, in fact I"m going to going excavating around this site to find examples.

Don't be disheartened .

Our lives are in our hands. You must do what you must and what feels right.