Woman Who Felt Short of Breath for Months Had Breast Cancer

• A 61-year-old went for an assessment because she’d been feeling really breathless for two months. 
• Doctors found that fluid had built up around her lungs and she had a malignant breast lump.
• Scans showed that the cancer had spread to her bones, including the skull, according to the report.

A woman who felt breathless and wheezy was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer, which had spread to her skull, according to a report. 

The unnamed 61-year-old woman, who had well-controlled asthma, went to doctors for an assessment because she couldn’t walk more than 100 yards — or for a few minutes —  without stopping to catch her breath, lung physicians wrote in a case report published in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science on December 8. 

She also had a wheeze, experienced chest pain when she breathed in, and had lost more than 28 pounds over two months, the doctors, who work in Morocco, wrote. 

Doctors later diagnosed the woman with a type of breast cancer that originates from the glands that make breast milk, called lobules, which had spread to other parts of the body. The condition is known as “invasive lobular carcinoma.”

About 287,850 women in the US will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 2022, and about 43,250 women will die from the condition, the American Cancer Society estimates. The average age of diagnosis is 62, it states.

The breast cancer had spread to her skull

According to the report, the doctors found that fluid had built up around her lungs, and there was a lump in her left breast and the nipple was retracted.

Tests on that fluid suggested that breast cancer had spread to the lining covering the lung, which was confirmed by a biopsy. A mammogram revealed two masses in her left breast. 

A CT scan later revealed that the breast cancer had spread to the woman’s bones, including her skull.

The doctors said in the report that fluid around the lungs usually appears at the advanced stages of breast cancer. The woman hadn’t had previous mammograms, they wrote.

In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that women aged between 50 and 74 with an “average” risk of breast cancer should get a mammogram every two years to check for cancer so it can be treated and “may be cured” before symptoms occur. 

A first-degree relative with breast cancer, dense breasts, and certain genetic mutations are examples of what may increase the chances of developing the condition, according to the CDC.

Doctors removed the fluid around the lungs with a needle 

Tests found that the woman’s cancer had progesterone and estrogen receptors, which enable those hormones to attach and stimulate the cancer to grow, but can also be a target for hormone therapy treatment. About three out of four breast cancers have at least one of these receptors, according to the ACS.

The doctors removed the fluid from the woman’s lungs with a needle to help her to breath, and treated the breast cancer with hormone therapy and chemotherapy, they wrote. The report didn’t provide further information about whether the treatments worked and if the woman recovered.