lymph node involvement

Does every person have the same amount of lymph nodes in a certain place, like under the arm? You often hear something like 14 out of 19 were positive, or 12 out of 20.

In my case, and before I had surgery and it was found that many lymph nodes were not only involved but had spread to adjacent fat tissue, and were stuck to each other, and nerves, and also were found in other places besides under the arm...one of my surgeon's reports said that my axially  lymph nodes were visible upon ultrasound but not palpable. Nothing suspicious showed up on the MRI either that was taken two weeks prior to surgery.

It seems like the TAC had worked very successfully on the breast but not so on the lymph nodes and which could not even be confirmed were present in a malignant form before.

My questions are 1) about the number of those nodes in each individual and if they are equal 2) is it common for affected lymph nodes not to show up on ultrasound and/or MRI  3) that TAC is not very effective on lymph nodes and what that means in terms of prognosis.

The way I understand it now is that even if my cancer is called metastatic breast cancer, that does not mean it is stage 4 because there is no evidence the cancer has spread to other parts of the body besides to the lymph nodes and surrounding tissue, and for which I had radiation therapy. (I had chemo first, and stage 3)

[BJSaws]

I don't know the answers to your other questions, but I do know that the number of lymph nodes varies greatly from individual to individual.  Some people have many lymph nodes and some people have just a few.

[japdip]

There are from 500 - 600 lymphnodes throughout the human body so I suppose none of us have exactly the same number. If you are referring more to the axillary nodes removed during breast cancer surgery .... it depends on the surgeon; some remove and test only the sentinel node and some remove a number of axillary nodes. It's an individual thing it seems.

[katarina777]

yes, my surgeon did the sentinel node biopsy on three lymph nodes and they were all positive so he took out all of the axially ones and after pathology tested them, 18 out of 20 were positive. but there were others outside that area too that he took out. (nearby)

[frankenfoot]

Was the removal painful?  Were the nodes themselves tender prior to removal.  Were you sore during/afterwards?  I really appreciate these postings from actual women who've been through these procedures.  Your posts help the uninformed, like me, make more educated decisions:)