Cancer Stories
Search by cancer type, stage, biomarker or treatment to find people who've been exactly where you are.
Discuss
PatientSavvy: Join us
A 54-year-old woman noticed a painless enlarging mass in her neck. Imaging showed an abnormal area in the left breast together with enlarged lymph nodes in several parts of the body. At first, the widespread lymph-node disease looked like metastatic breast cancer.
Biopsies showed that she actually had two separate cancers. The breast lesion was invasive ductal carcinoma that was ER-positive, PR-positive, and HER2-positive. The enlarged lymph nodes were caused by diffuse large B-cell lymphoma rather than spread of the breast cancer.
Because the lymphoma was the more urgent disease, treatment initially focused on the lymphoma. After completing the first phase of lymphoma treatment, she underwent a left mastectomy in October 2022. Pathology confirmed an approximately 2 cm invasive ductal breast tumor.
Follow-up showed no local recurrence of the breast cancer. Her lymphoma later relapsed and required several additional treatments, while follow-up continued to show no local recurrence of the breast cancer.
This is a lay summary of an account first published by PMC / PubMed Central. Read the original in full
How we source and attribute stories Accuracy and limitations
These are lay summaries of published cancer stories, for information only. No two cancers behave the same way, and nothing here predicts your own diagnosis or replaces advice from your oncology team. Read the full disclaimer