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| Forum | Questions | Ask a Question | |
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Understanding Pathology Results Questions explaining and understanding pathology results. |
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| 1/12/2012 | My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in the left breast in 1997. She was subjected to tumor removal while keeping the breast. She had lymph nodes analysis and found ok. She was subjected to radiotherapy and hormon therapy through tamoxifen. Since that time she was doing mamograms every 6 months. Just recently Jan 2012, they have seen something in the mamogram in the same breast and they performed sample pathology with a result "Left breast small foci of invasive ductal adenocarcinoma grade 2". Is this a reoccurrence? What is her risk? What is the treatment options? The right breast mamogram is ok. | ||
| Replied | JHU's Breast Center Reply | ||
| 1/12/2012 | oh my. Yes, this is recurrence--- what is called local recurrence. Depending on whether it is the exact same breast cancer that returned vs a new primary breast cancer is based on the type of breast cancer she had before and comparing some of the specific prognostc factorsof the tumors (like estrogen receptors). Since she had radiation with lumpectomy before she would not be a candidate for lumpectomy again since the breast cannot be radiated a second time. So the standard of care, unless she is elderly, is mastectomy with or without reconstruction. The size of the tumor influences her prognosis and other treatments she may or may not need. since there is reference to it being small then it would imply it is a stage 1 breast cancer and would be easy to treat. potentially surgery may solve the problem.if she is elderly and the cancer is in fact small and it is estrogen receptor positive again, she may even be able to skate through with a lumpectomy again and hormonal therapy of a different kind than what she had before. we can figure all of that out for you. would you like to bring her to us? just call 443-287-2778. She should be able to get reconstruction done too which since her surgery in 1997 has become covered by insurance courtesy of a federal law. thanks for helping your mom too. | ||
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