I am new to all this as I'm sure many are. I was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year and had a mastectomy. I underwent radiation treatments in July and August. I found some lumps on my neck a few weeks ago and since then have had a biopsy of two lymph nodes from my left groin. The pathologist states that both nodes tested positive for Peripheral T-Cell lymphoma. I had a PET scan today but that's about as far as I've gotten with anything. I would like to know the procedure for obtaining a second opinion of the results of the biopsy. Thanks for any information. Tom
Tom, I am sorry to hear of your diagnosis. You should be able to simply tell your oncologist that you want a second opinion and he/she should be willing to arrange it. The second should be done by a major NCCN approved cancer center such as Dana-Farber, Sloan Kettering, MD Anderson or any of a fairly large group of others. You can google National Comprehensive Cancer Network for a full list (www.nccn.org/).
If your doctor is resistive, you should ask why and press for what you want - he works for you and you should be in control of your care plan. If he doesn't want to cooperate, you should consider finding another doctor.
It does sound like the pathologist has it right but by all means press for the second opinion. I am wondering if the breast cancer diagnosis was accurate...was a biopsy done when you had that treatment?
Good luck and good health,
kermica
Kermica, Thank you for the information. The only name familar to me is Sloan-Kettering and so that confirms to me just how much I am in the dark about all this. I’ll take a look at all the places you mentioned and try to educate myself.
Over 55 years ago when I was 14 or so I had a part of my 4th rib on the left side removed because I had a non-malignant tumor growing around it. A year after that I had a pretty large keloid grow on the scar and I had that removed. I was sent to have radiation treatments on the scar area a few weeks after the keloid was removed. I don’t recall how many treatments I had or the name of the place where I got them.
I never had any further problems with tumors after that time.
In March of this year I found a large lump on my left breast. With my history of radiation treatments right in almost that exact area along with some other good indicators and the way my luck runs, I figured that it was cancer. I contacted the surgeon who had done my thyroid surgery in '94 but he had limited his practice to thyroids and something else that I don’t remember but they had another surgeon in the office who was willing to see me. I went to see him not knowing if I was his first, tenth, fiftieth male breast cancer patient. I still don’t know although he is the one who did my mastectomy. He sent me to the woman’s breast cancer center affiliated with one of the local hospitals where I had mammograms done on both breasts and ultra sounds done on the left breast. The next day I had a needle biopsy done to my left breast. They stuck me four times using very large needles. The test proved positive for cancer. I was hesitant about letting this particular surgeon do the mastectomy mainly because I didn’t know how experienced he was with a male mastectomy. My wife felt that it was okay to have him do it and with that and the fact I didn’t know where else to turn, I went ahead and had the mastectomy. When he did the mastectomy he also removed four lymph nodes from my left shoulder area and they were tested and found to be negative for cancer. So where this lymphoma came from is beyond me.
Thank you again and good luck and good health to you also.
Tom