Interview 33: Breast cancer

Age at interview: 56

Age at diagnosis: 54

Brief Outline:

Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. Underwent a lumpectomy and was given Intra-operative radiotherapy and Tamoxifen.

Background:

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Suggesting a sentinel node biopsy allowed this woman to avoid a lymph gland operation for breast cancer.

 It's an organisation called Can Help and they have a website.

 

He did a report for me that told me about something called sentinel node biopsy, which was a way of avoiding the very serious lymph gland operation. They simply inject a radioactive dye into the tumour and then they track it with a radio isotope. And this is quite painless. It's just watching something on a screen. And there's a dye injected which wasn't nearly as painful as the fine needle biopsy. And if the radioactive dye drains out, it will go to the first lymph gland, that's called the sentinel node.

 

And then the next day when I had my surgery they - with a little Geiger counter - they go straight to this lymph gland and they do a cytology, then and there, in the operating theatre. And if it's negative there's no way it can have spread to the rest of your glands, and that avoids major surgery.

 

I persuaded him, because it was part of a trial, that I didn't want to have the lymph glands removed after and he agreed because he considered I was sufficiently well informed.

 

And I think it's so important not to be bamboozled by doctors into the first set of solutions, they panic you into having major surgery that perhaps isn't right for you.