Fibroepithelial lesion / Phyllodes Tumor
Hi! I’m 40 and I noticed a small lump around September of last year. It was small but not painful and seemed to appear over night. Having experienced cyst previously, I waited until March of this year to finally get it checked out. I was told it was a 1.1cm probable fibroadenoma and to follow up in 6 months. In May I noticed that the lump was larger. It seemed like it had doubled and there was a nodule growing on top of it. You could clearly see it under my skin. I also have a burning sensation every now and then. I requested to have a core needle biopsy because I didn't want to wait an additional 3 months to find out what it was. I had the biopsy last week and both breast surgeon and radiologist tried to assure me that it was a fibroadenoma. Today, I was able to retrieve my results through my patient portal and this is what it said:
The biopsy shows a fibroepithelial lesion with mildly increased stromal cellularity, minimal cytologic atypia, areas suggestive of stromal expansion, and no mitoses. The differential includes fibroadenoma and benign phyllodes tumor.
I received a phone call from the breast clinic telling me my results were benign but they were concerned about the reporting showing cytology atypical. After a few questions the nurse basically told me they were confused by the pathology report because normally it just says fibroadenoma or benign. I asked what they recommending that I do and they said discuss it with the surgeon to decide how certain I want to be of the results. The only for them to know for sure if there are malignant cells is to remove it completely and take a look. He did tell me that the good news is since it didn't show have malignant cells on the core biopsy they should be able to keep the margins low if I elected to have it removed.
Has anyone experienced anything similar? I'm extremely disappointed and frustrated that I'm even more confused than I was before the biopsy. I don’t really trust the doctors since they were so dismissive initially and seem so uncertain now