Results

Hi

I know that the KI67 is the percentage of cells diving actively in the biopsy/excision. My post surgery KI67 came back exactly the same as the biopsy one.

the ER and PR receptor is how responsive to each hormone. It is better to have both than one as it is more responsive to hormone therapy.

the chemo decision won’t be made from this info but from whether spread to nodes and then an oncotype test. depending on your age, you may still avoid chemo with positive nodes and an oncotype under a trial called optima. 

xx

Also, I don’t know about the HER2 score - sorry. 

If you go on the Breast Cancer Now site there are lots of brochures. One of which is how to decipher pathology results.  Two ticks whilst I find you a link x

https://breastcancernow.org/information-support/publication/understanding-your-pathology-results-bcc161

Here is a link from breastcancernow that explains about HER2. This will explain why the HER2 result was as you were told

Ki-67 is a protein that is used by pathology to look at the cancer's growth, and helps the oncologists make decisions regarding systemic treatment, when put together will all other relevant information. 

About the DCIS being high grade -- while the cells are looking the least like normal cells, this cancer still remained right where it started, which is the "IS" part of "DCIS." 

The letter arriving on Saturday morning is a classic. I am slightly dreading Easter in that someone here will be in need on Thursday evening out of hours, just before Good Friday.

As for what to expect, you are right in saying the consultant is the only one to say, but I would cautiously guess from what you wrote here that there is a good chance they will offer chemo. Not enough information for me to form any kind of guess re radiotherapy.

Looking at your post again, is this before or after surgery? There is no mention of lymph nodes; is that mentioned in the pathology report at all?

Thank you that’s a very helpful link

Oops my fat finger has flagged this to a moderator, and I can’t seem to unflagging it - sorry 

Thank you! 

So if I’m understanding what you said ‘high grade’ is good? As in good ‘quality’? 

I haven’t had surgery yet, they did a biopsy of a second cluster last week to determine whether it’s mastectomy or not (but she’s told me it probably will be) ultrasound said there was no lymph node involved but presumably they will biopsy when I have surgery. 

Thank you for your reply 

Runner_5 said:

So if I’m understanding what you said ‘high grade’ is good? As in good ‘quality’? 

The grade has to do with two things: how far from normal cells do the cancer cell appear? How fast is it growing? A lot of the time a cancer that looks the farthest from normal is also the fastest growing, but not always, which is why they look at other markers of how fast the cancer might be growing.

What I was trying to say was that although the DCIS cells show a high grade of cancer, which might mean a higher rate of growth, that did not cause them to leave the area where they had started.

I had just high grade DCIS in 2015.  This means it's the most active and likely to break our but as it's still Dcis it's not invasive do good news .  I had surgery and radiotherapy for DCIS as not homone receptive .  I'm 6 years down the line