Internal mammary nodes

Hi Missi k

I have no experience - sorry and I'm equally sorry you are having all this worry.  I've personally never seen a query on this on the forum before, so I wonder if it might be worth ringing the Macmillan helpline and speaking to an expert as they may be able to give you more information.

By replying I'm 'bumping' your query back to the first page so you never know, someone with some experience may be around at the moment and be able to offer some more.  This is the telephone number for the helpline:  0808 808 00 00

Kindest Wishes, Lesley

Hi

Sorry to hear you have a suspect node in the IMC

i have treated patients before with IMC nodes involved with radiotherapy.Modern techniques make this less risky than it used to be and there was a study released in 2015 that said if you treat patients in breath hold the dose to the heart and lungs can be greatly reduced.

If you look in the forum search bar you will see other posts about internal mammary node involvement but they are all quite old.

Are they going to watch and wait to see if the node goes down?

Thankyou for your reply Lesleyhelen,

I also haven’t seen anything regarding this , although I did put it in the search bar and found a couple of older post queries regarding this but very vague really, trust me to have something that’s quite a rare occurrence.

Hi exraygirl,

My oncologist said she would see what the radiography guy says when he’s studied my scan as to if it’s safe to treat this area, although I have to go through 18weeks of chemotherapy before this can be done.

Its just constantly on my mind at the moment. Thankyou for replying, it’s good to know you have had experience of treating this area .

Hi

Hopefully the chemo will sort out the node.

wishing you all the best going forwards x

Hopefully, I’m keeping everything crossed.

Hi Missi k

Treatment ended 2 years ago now. I seem to remember my team mentioning this during treatment and various scans even PET scan Things visible on scans etc, ? Enlarged due to all treatment etc. I could never get an exact answer really, just said all treatment/ chemo etc would deal with anything. All the later scans ok and no one ever mentioned it again and I try not to go over and over details of treatment I don't think it's good to do, for me anyway, safe to say  my team threw everything at it !  Was told cancer free xx

Hi Pusheen, 

Thankyou for taking the time to reply and great news that you are cancer free . 
I’m really hoping it is swollen due to all the trauma of surgery . I guess time will tell but trying to be positive .

Hi  yes stay as positive as possible, but I know that's not easy at times. It's early days for me and I am always quite anxious and hypervigilent which is tiring as I am high risk. Hope all is well with you and your treatment xxxx

Hello Missi k. Are you able to request that they bring in a chest specialist into their MDT when they discuss your case? While this is coming from a cancer perspective, the location and internal organs involved seem to be making this necessary. Possibly you could ask for a referral so you could have a conversation with such a specialist and get their input into what is going on.

I have good reasons to suggest that apart from the obvious; last year my breast cancer MDT made a judgment call they shouldn't have made without such input, and the result for me was months of unnecessary treatment and a long delay on the treatment I actually needed. When I finally got to see the chest specialist he took one look at my scans and said, "I don't think this is breast cancer," and a little while later he was able to prove it when he took all suspicious findings out and had them sent to pathology.