Hip pain after chemo

I finished my chemo the end of Jan 08, I am currently going through reconstruction.  The past few months, I started having alot of pain in my right hip.  They did a bone scan and nothing.  I recently did an MRI and my oncologist says that I have fluid on both of my hips.  She is not ruling out cancer until fluid is drawn from an orthopedic doctor and sent off for biopsy.

My question is:  Has anyone had this and what was the outcome.  Can fluid indicate cancer?  I am playing the waiting game and curious what others have experienced.

[Fernando Roque, MD]

Hi.  By "fluid on both hips" do you mean fluid in the hip joints?  If you have fluid in both your hip joints, it would be a very unusual manifestation of breast cancer metastases.  The hip joint is not the usual place where metastases in the breasts go.  You typically find breast metastases in the lungs, liver, bone or brain.  So I doubt that that fluid in your hip joints is cancer.  If that fluid were cancer metastases, I would also expect it to occur in only one hip joint, and not involve both joints.  My guess is that fluid may be a manifestation of some intrinsic joint disease like arthritis.