Bilateral mastectomy with missed biopsy clip
Hi, everyone. Wondering if there are others with this experience. Had skin sparing bilateral mastectomy 2/11/22 with dx of DCIS, and immediate reconstruction. Pathology report says that the biopsy clip was not found in the tissue sample. My surgeon has agreed to mammogram to see if missing clip is still in the breast. I am a little concerned with mammogram squeeze so soon after surgery and not certain I will trust a mammogram if it shows no clip. My mammogram after placement of clip was difficult for the tech to image and position me correctly. And with implants already in, I don't know how clear the image will be. I think that if no clip is found I will ask for MRI.
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Ugh. I don't know anything about looking for "lost" clips post surgery, but in the past 3 weeks I have had mammography twice to check for new clip placements. Those went easily for me, but my tumor is toward the front of my breast at 1:00, so maybe easier to locate.
I'll say that from my experience the firm "squeeze" isn't really needed, so I'd consider asking for a tech experience with clip location proficiency, especially since your last clip check was difficult.
I hope this one goes much better for you.
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Mammogram showed no signs of biopsy clip. It was minimal squeeze, so no pain at all. Doctor showed me the films and prior films to explain why is likely wasn't there. But the clip was to the posterior of the breast and mammogram can't get pick of the chest wall, so I wasn't really feeling like the mammogram was helpful. But doctor agreed to do a MRI for my added reassurance. I really appreciate that she is interested in my feelings and how that relates to my recovery.
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I had a unilateral mastectomy on 4/20 and the clip is also missing from my breast tissue sample. I also recall that the mammogram technician had a hard time locating at least one of the clips that I had in a sequence of 5 biopsies but I'm not sure if it was this particular clip. I am very interested in learning how this turned out for you - did you have a follow up MRI?
"There was an area that was biopsied prior to surgery showing cancer and an M clip was placed. This M clip was not seen in your pathology specimen. It is possible that it fell out or got lost in processing but this needs to be confirmed. We are recommending a mammogram to look for that clip. If it is still visible on imaging, another surgery will need to be performed to remove it to make sure that area has no residual cancer. If the clip is not seen, then no surgery would be done."
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