Breast Cancer Diagnosis?

Question

Recently a very close friend of mine turned 40. At this age, it is recommended that women go for mamograms and so she went for a routine one.

They found a 4cm highly calcified nodule which they defined as highly suspicious. Cancer is in their family history.

Obviously a diagnosis cannot be made without a biopsy which she is scheduled to undertake in about a week or so. Needless to say, she is fearing the worst.

What I'm wondering is if there are any charts that show relationships between nodule size and probability of a positive breast cancer diagnosis?

Answer 1

I do not know of such a chart, nor do I know of such a relationship between size of nodule and probability of breast cancer (which is probably why there is no chart).

In other words, there are plenty of very small nodules that end up being cancer....and there are plenty of large nodules that do not end up being cancer.

There are certain known mammographical features that do suggest cancer, though...and these are:
1) Increased density (ie. show up really white on films)
2) Irregular margins (ie. not a perfect circle on films)
3) Spiculation (appear needle-like)
4) Clusters of irregular microcalcifications

When reading your description, I was a bit concerned when you said "highly calcified", but like you said...a biopsy must be done. Any speculation beforehand just causes our fears and anxieties to run wild...

I hope and pray the biopsy brings a good report.

Answer 2

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