need to talk to someone about my path report

[DJ56]

I've asked several questions here and they have not yet been answered, is there someone I can call to talk about my dx and path report? I even sent a "PM" to Dr. Leo, but perhaps I did something wrong and never sent it. All I know is that my anxiety level is high, and my appts for the med and rad oncologists are Mon and Tues, and I have no idea what questions to ask!
Please.. would someone be willing to talk to me about er/pr negative and grading and metastatic breast cancer?

[penelopez]

Hi Diane,

If you could ask the specific questions about the pathology report, I and others here will try and answer them. I know I'll do my best to help.

Hugs,

Margie

[Tracey]

Hi,
After my surgery I found a great site on the web that was called "understanding your pathology report." I don't remember what website it was on, but if you do a search for those words you should find it, it wasn't hard to locate. It might have been on the www.imaginis.com website. Anyway, if your tumor is ER- and PR-, it just means you probably won't be prescribed any hormone based therapy, like tamoxifen. You might be prescribed chemo depending on the size of your tumor and how many lymph nodes where involved, if any. Nuclear grading is on a scale of 1 to 3, most people have tumors that are a 2 or 3, with 3 being the most aggressive. Once you start to sort through it you'll see that its pretty easy to understand.

[Pastor Rich]

The link is....

http://www.breastcancer.org/pathology_intro.html


Rich

[MuttsMom]

The pathology report is mind boggling, especially when it's all so new and you're scared. It's acutally easy to read, but when you don't know what they are talking about it makes no sense. We've all been there and you learn alot through this journey, alot more then any of us wish we had to know.
There should be something on the path that has, T? N? M? The T is the size of the tumor. I was stage III, so my T was T3. I had 9+ nodes out of 16, but because they weren't clumped together and were individual, I was a N1. The M is for distant mets. If the tests they run prior to chemo aren't conclusive, you'll have a MX, meaning unknown. I didn't have any, so mine was M0.
It will talk about er/pr, which you know what that is and also Her2Neu, that will be negative or positive and if positive, will be between 1 and 3 with +++ signs.
Take someone with you when you go. It is so overwhelming that your brain shuts down after it can't absorb anymore. I always took notes to ask and ask as many as you want answers to.
If there is anything specific, ask and if one of us doesn't know, we will sure find the answer for you.
Oh, also it will say if you have DCIS, Invasive Ductal, Lobular etc. That's the type of breast cancer it is.
Hugs and prayers and don't hesitate to ask for antidepressants. I don't know many if any that haven't taken them during treatment or wish they had. I'm still taking Paxil 2 1/2 years later.
Nancy

[leo]

DJ56

Sorry for not answering your question, I never got it... but anyway.

As said above, ER/PR- tumor cells won't respond to hormonal therapy. Unfortunately the prognosis is a bit worse in that case. Staging and grading are different things. Clinical staging means an assessment of how localized (or not) the tumor is, and is essentially what guides the treatment. A stage II has a very different treatment than a grade IIIB, for example. The grading is what the pathologist does when he looks at the cells. More differentiated cells, meaning tumoral cells that resemble the original tissue more closely have (in general) a better prognosis. So if the cells are undifferentiated, or poorly differentiated it is generally worse.

The links posted above will help you as well.

Questions to ask your doctor:
- What clinical stage you are
- What treatment options there are and the consequences in terms of prognosis, side-effects etc.
- What is the follow-up

I think that's what I'd like to know. Of course there are so many questions, but in general those should be helpful.

good luck !!

Leo