The second MRI

The second MRI was done on August 25th and I received the report later that day that the lump was LARGER. I had given them my prior MRI cd as well as my various lab reports so they knew the first MRI sized the lump at 16mm or 1.6cm. They were now saying it was 27mm or 2.7cm.

At first I was quite depressed to hear this. They provided me with the MRI pictures on cd so I began to view them myself on my computer.

What I found however, was not in line with what they were saying. To go from 16mm to 27mm would have been almost double in size.

I measured the distance between the edge of my breast to the nipple and it is about 3 inches or 76.2 mm. A lump that is 27mm is about 1/3 of the distance that is between nipple and chest on my breast. When I look at the images I see the reverse situation – that the lump appears to be larger on the July MRI and closer to 1/3 of the “real estate” between beginning of breast curve and nipple.

I am inserting the MRI pics of note here.

The first one is the first MRI of the lump from July 5th of 2006:

The next several are from the most recent MRI on August 25th – 6 weeks after the first MRI:

What I notice here are several things. The contrast is lighter on the second MRI for the lump. Is that because of a different contrast medium OR is it because there is less of a blood supply in the tumor? Hmmm?

And I notice it seems to be retreating from the surface of the skin which is why the skin retraction is softening. I sure wish I could find out more about skin retraction – why it happens and why it stops happening. But to me, the second MRI is actually encouraging.