What is your approach to initial management of patient with clinically palpable axillary disease, histologically proven breast cancer, with no imaging evidence of an occult primary or metastatic disease?
Would you proceed with modified radical mastectomy followed by systemic therapy, or would you consider neoadjuvant therapy? Would biomarker status matter? (such as utilizing Xeloda for residual disease following neoadjuvant therapy in triple-negative setting)
2 Answers
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Medical Oncology · Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Answered on
The frequency of TXN+M0 cases has declined with the availability of breast MRI, as many cancers occult on mammography and ultrasound are detected by MRI, but they still occur, and are usually high grade, triple-negative or HER2+. I treat these as I would any patient with node-positive disease, with ...
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Medical Oncology · Ventura County Medical Center
Answered on
I had a similar case; no breast primary on mammo, breast us and mri. I ended up doing a PET-CT and found a small signal in the ipsilateral breast. We did a biopsy (w/marker placement) that identified the primary breast lesion (TNBC, IDC). Anyways, I am currently doing neoadjuvant chemo.
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