Ok…I didn’t think they did sentinel node biopsy in the UK for cervical cancer. I’m in Australia and I believe they follow the UK guidelines… Don’t believe they do it here. It wasn’t offered to me…
Hi there…not sure I’ve already messaged you, but just wondering where you had the sentinel node biopsy done?? Where are you located? It’s not offered where I am and they want to remove my pelvic nodes and biopsy them after. They may not need to be removed so I’m thinking to travel somewhere they do…thank you…Sandi
Hi there,
I just thought I would let you know that my family doctor sent a referral to Princess Margaret and they set up an appt for me with Sarah Ferguson. I have to fly back from Australia to start the process though. I did speak with another doctor from Sunnybrook who said he could book me in for the surgery. He says a simple hysterectomy done laparoscopically is safe for me along with sentinel node biopsy. It’s so different from what they advised here, I worry that one is too extreme and the other isn’t extreme enough. I don’t know how to feel about it. I keep thinking if I wasn’t in Australia I would only have the guidance of doctors in Toronto and wouldn’t have the comparison. They scare me here that I will not be doing enough without doing a more radical surgery. They don’t offer sentinel node biopsy where I am in Australia, and they recommend radical hysterectomy not simple, as well as to do it abdominally. A doctor in Europe and Toronto say I don’t need to do it that way. I’m trying to wrap my head around it. I don’t want to do too much but I don’t want to do ‘not enough’ either. Ugh!
It’s a tough call. You should discuss your options with dr Ferguson. She will give you her honest opinion and the best plan to follow. At the end of the day the decision is yours but they caught the cancer early so extreme measures shouldn’t have to be taken. But I’m not a doctor.
Yeah. I hope they get me in soon. Was yours considered cervical cancer since it was in a polyp? If so what stage were you? Sounds like yours was a bit different…
Yes. The polyp was on my cervix. My cancer for some reason grew into the polyp. Basically once it was removed, there was no sign of cancer.
Thanks for the reply. Did they do it laparoscopically? How many nodes were removed? Two sentinel nodes? Was your hysterectomy done laparoscopically or open? Thanks for the input <3
Hiya,
Was this for cervical cancer? If so what stage? Did you have a hysterectomy too? Thanks for the input!! x
Yes it was for cervical cancer. I did not have a hysterectomy at all. They removed 5 sentinel lymph nodes all together and did a d&c. They all came back negative. The cancer was only in the polyp and no trace of it anywhere else.
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I had an open abdominal radical hysterectomy and at the start they said they put the dye in to find the sentinel nodes which in my case was one on one side and two on the other side, and then removed those with everything else. They did say that if they couldn’t find the sentinel ones then they’d have to take more/all of them, but thankfully it worked.
I told my doctor that if they can’t find the sentinels then I didn’t want my lymph nodes removed at all. I only consented to sentinels being removed because I didn’t want to get or be at risk for lymphodima.
How did they respond to you but wanting them removed? Didn’t they advise that you would be taking the risk that they had cancer and you wouldn’t know without removing them?
She was fine. I understood the risk. Ultimately it’s my body so I have the final say on what they do.
Ok thank you. You said you were had stage 1b. Do you recall your tumor size?
I was stage 1b1 and the polyp was about 2cm.
Hi I wasn’t sure if this Q was for me or not but if helpful- I’m not entirely sure of the size as they never got a complete picture. My cancer was found after a LLETZ, they said at that point the biggest dimension was around 2cm but they didn’t get it all. After the hysterectomy they found more cancer but I’m not sure of the dimensions once the two parts were added together, but somewhere between 2-3cms I think.
I can see from your other posts that you’ve been given different advice by different consultants, which must be hard. When I was discussing treatment with my team they did mention the research that had suggested that laparoscopic surgery had sometimes been less successful than open with tumours greater than 2cm. I was told as at that point mine was thought to be less than 2cm I could have had laparoscopic but they recommended open. I wanted open as I had done my own research into the two types.
Thank you for your reply. Im pretty sure if mine was 2cm or thereabouts, I would do open too. I’m only considering laparoscopic because of how small mine was and because it’s been removed already by cone biopsy. If there’s anything left behind it shouldn’t be a bulky tumour. My scans didn’t show anything. Mine was only 1mm diam, but one margin wasn’t clear so there could be some residual disease there.
