2 BREAST -- 2 CANCERS ~?~?~? HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN

pinkisit0415

CAN ANYONE OUT THERE TELL ME HOW -- I CAN FIGURE OUT WHAT IS HAPPENING ?? RIGHT BR-- HAS DCIS, LEFT BR -- HAS IDC,
BOTH STAGE 2 --DBLE OR BILAT MAST-- RECOMMENDED AND THEN CHEMO-- DO THEY KNOW ABOUT LYMPH YET & NOT TELLING ME - OR DOES THAT COME ON SURGERY DAY?? WHAT IS ESTROGEN AND PROGESTERONE + MEAN ??
THANX, PINK

Caya

Pink,

DCIS is precancerous cells, IDC is invasive ductal carcinoma (cancer). They are recommending taking off both your breasts.
Estrogen and progesterone are hormone receptors, and it is good if you are + (positive) for both, so then you can take tamoxifen or an A.I. ( like Arimidex or Femara) to stop the estrogen from producing, as this is fueling your cancer.
Most lymph node reports come after surgery, as they will do either a sentinel lymph node ( SLN) dissection (one - 4 nodes), or an axillary lymph node dissection ( many more, could be up to 30 or so) The lymph node report usually comes a few days - a week or so after surgery, the pathologist has to cut through the nodes to check for cancer cells. It is a better prognosis to be node negative, but do not despair if you have small microscopic cells in the nodes, or more - there are great chemos out there, and other drugs.
Even if you are HER2+ like me - there is Herceptin, a targeted drug therapy that stops the HER2neu+ gene from overexpressing. Wonderful results with this drug.

Hope this helps.
all the best caya.

P.S.
You should look on the main breastcancer.org pages under diagnosis and treatment - you will get alot of great basic information there.

Carmelle

Hi there,

i had cx in both breasts at dx. right side IDC stage 3A or 2B.

Left just DCIS&LCIS. I had 5 positive lymph nodes in IDC side. that was almost 5 years ago now.

Estrofen/progesterone dictates if you are candidate for hormaonal therapy.

I was ER+ and pr-.Bilateral mast/chemo/rads/hormonal

Michelle