Should I opt to have surgery to remove the endo even though they think it's a very low chance it's cancer, or just keep getting ultrasounds?

[starrynight5626]

My story is that I had a CT scan back in March when I was sent to have due to stomach pains which, at the time, they thought was appendicitis but just wanted to confirm before sending me to the hospital. It ended up being diverticulitis but they found a mass and a fibroid in the CT scan which required further looking into.

I went for an abdominal and transvaginal ultrasound in April and once again they could tell it was a fibroid but didn't know if it was pedunculated or if there was a mass associated with it. I was sent for an MRI scheduled for end of May, but ended up having to cancel that due to my mother's death and rescheduled for late June.

At the end of June I had the MRI, which showed it to be a 3.2 cm endometrioma along with a 1.5 cm pedunculated cyst. The OB/GYN I saw the week after the MRI said they could do a laparoscopy and take it out as that's the only way to tell what it is or she said, since I don't have any pain or symptoms (the only pain was when I was diagnosed with diverticulitis and that's when this was noticed as an incidental on the CT scan) that it could be monitored by getting an ultrasound in 3 months and then again 6 months after that and see if it grows. If it grows, then have the surgery, but if it stays the same or shrinks then we can discontinue monitoring it after a year.

I opted to see how it goes with ultrasounds. It was measured at 3.2 cm back in March when first noticed, the ultrasound in April measured it as 3.6 cm, but then in June it was measured back to 3.2 cm. I don't know if those numbers are negligible or if it grew a bit and then shrunk again, if that's even possible, or if it's just how the scans were read.

However, I'm not sure what I should do. I am in the US and I didn't realize until later that this site was mostly used by UK folks and I think your doctors tend to be much more proactive about things from what I've read on here. One issue is that I think I will have to go off my husband's insurance by the end of the year because they are raising his premiums and go on my own insurance through my company. That's not a big deal, but if that's the case, it means I have to go through a totally different network and find a new doctor, which I'm not happy about. That means I'll have to transfer all of this info over to them and get my last ultrasound through them. Which is why I wonder if I should opt to have the surgery before I change over, even if this next 3 month ultrasound (which I have scheduled for Oct. 1) doesn't show any changes? Just so when I do switch over they know what they have to deal with...or maybe they won' have to deal with anything at all.

What would you do??

[Tealgirl7]

I am not sure which type of ultrasound you have. It needs to be vaginal. I had abdominal ultrasounds that were negative and I had lymph nodes cancerous everywhere

[starrynight5626 in reply to Tealgirl7]

I had both abdominal and transvaginal at the same time and will have them both again this coming time.

[delia2]

Hi. I would have the surgery sooner rather than later both for insurance reasons and to rule out cancer. They can’t really know without getting in there.