Questions re: SNB
I'm scheduled for an ultrasound of lymph nodes, with needle biopsy if indicated. I fear that I could have long-term side-effects even from just one node biopsied. Is my fear justified? Also, from posts I've read in various forums, it seems like even if a node is biopsied pre-surgery and negative, it's quite common for positive nodes to be found during surgery, which makes me wonder what the point is in even getting the biopsy prior to surgery? Any experiences with this appreciated.
Comments
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I had an ultrasound when I was diagnosed with BC in 2018. One of the nodes looked suspicious and a biopsy was performed. It was positive. This in turn led to my MO to order a PET scan before I had surgery. It lit up on the breast and the one node. However, I had 3 positive nodes found after the SNB and mastectomy.
I haven’t had any long term effects from that biopsy. While it’s true that my surgical pathology didn’t correlate to what was seen on imaging, most of the time it does. It gives the BS and MO more information to develop a treatment plan. In hindsight, I would probably have had chemo before surgery if it was known about the 3 positive nodes. I did do chemo after the surgery and doing well now. Even knowing my situation didn’t follow a perfect script, I don’t have any regrets about doing the biopsy.
Can you be more specific about what long term side effect you are worried about?1 -
Thanks so much for sharing your experience! What I'm concerned about is that (at least from what I've read) is that a small percentage of women may have altered feeling in the underarm area and even lymphedema. I don't want to take a chance with this if this possibility exists and as I wrote above, it's apparently not a very accurate picture of the overall node status. My plan is to have a lumpectomy only, and wouldn't they determine the status at that time? I do understand that knowing the status could help guide them—but only partially since they won't have the complete picture.
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They cannot determine the status of your nodes from a lumpectomy alone. They can only do this with a sentinel node biopsy. Either before or during surgery (mine was during), a blue dye is injected into the breast and it will travel to your sentinel nodes (usually one to three nodes). These are the nodes that cancer will arrive to first if it is traveling from the breast. These nodes will be removed and biopsied.
I had an enlarged lymph node on ultrasound and the needle biopsy was negative. It was not one of my two sentinel nodes so it was not removed. My sentinel nodes were also negative. I am four years out and have had no lymphedema or other problems.
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