u/LPFE_1972

hi everyone,

wanted to share my story after silently following this sub since weeks. I'm 53, almost 54, (menopause not anywhere near still though, not sure if that matters). Have done my last mammography last year in June 2025, BIRAD-2, everything fine - hurrah !

Then, thinking back now, since like January 2026 I started to feel a lump in my breast. Had no concerns at all (as I relied on my mammography done only 6 months prior with nothing suspicious found). The lump didn't go away though and I thought better to have it checked but still no concerns as cancer can't develop in like only a few moths, right ?

And of course I was wrong. An MRI with contrast showed a 3 cm cancerous tumour (Kaiser score 11) and 2 other suspicious masses. I thought I'm done with my life and couldn't function the next couple of weeks, as something which grew that fast must be super-aggressive and must have spread to my whole body already, the last 4 weeks I was at the darkest place in my life.

Then, finally 2 days ago I got my biopsy results:

3 cm invasive malignant tumour NST, KI67 7%, Grade 1, ER95%, PR85%, HER2-low, as for now, no nod involvement seen on MRI & US (the other masses have turned out to be benign or not yet cancerous but possibly in the future, so they are going to remove those as well)..

And what should i say, I was almost relieved as I really thought the tumour must be aggressive af as it grew in like a couple of months to 3 cm and has for sure spread to every part in my body (still a possibility but at least not very likely). But turned out as per biopsy histology, Mr. Cancer was likely chilling in my breast already for like a few years, slowly growing, but radiologist overlooked it year by year on mammography due to my dense breasts tissue, until I could finally feel the 3 cm shitty bastard by myself..

I learned in the meantime that in dense breasts (mine is ACR-C) the failure rate on mammography is up to 50% for ACR3-C and 70% for ACR-4. Like wtf ! Nobody told me that and I was too stupid/ignorant to find out by myself earlier, as I would have insisted on MRI otherwise even if I have to pay from my own pocket (on MRI the cancerous tumour was glowing like a brightest neon tube in Las Vegas).

I really want to shout out to all women with dense breast tissue: don't rely on mammography, insist on MRIs ! My cancer would have been found probably much much earlier.

Please spread the message to all women you know: if you have dense breast tissue, insist on MRI, don't rely on mammography.

Apolgies for the long text !