MY DX dont really understand

LEisenbarth

Ok just pulled my report out to look at it a little closer and now I'm confused.  Here goes

Invasive Mammary carcinoma with mixed ductal and colliod morphology

            size >5 cm

            Grade 2/3

             estrogen/progesterone +

             0/1 lymph node  (then after futher testing 1/1)

  2nd Surgery   0/14 lymph nodes

Does anyone have BC that looks like this?

TenderIsOurMight

Elizabeth,

I didn't have the colloid component, just the IDC. But I read a lot, and thought it might be encouraging for you to know that colloid breast cancer (bc) is also called mucinous breast cancer and tends to have a better prognosis than IDC alone. So the more colloid bc in the 5 cm tumor, the better. It's called mucinous because the cells actually produce mucous (a jelly like substance). It tends not to spread to the lymph nodes and tends to be ER+, HER-.

Perhaps you wish to ask your oncologist what the cancer cells in the one positive lymph node looked like under the microscope? Where they the mucinous type or the very common ductal type? How much of the node was involved: the entire lymph node or just a portion of it or just infrequent cells? Again, this will help him/her to advise you on your treatment and prognosis.

So while your tumor was 5 cm, thus Stage III, it is encouraging it was mixed type with the mucinous tumor. No one replaces your own doctor, so please do ask them your questions.

I hope your treatment is going well.

Tender 

LEisenbarth

Thank you for your information when I go on-line and looked it said that IMC was a mixture of IDC and ILC but my Dr's have said nothing about ILC...the colliod has been mentioned on several reports and I seen were it was pretty rare. Weird.  I will just have to ask when I go back on the 14th for my chemo...

 Hugs and Prayers ~Leslie

voraciousreader

Here's breastcancer.org's link to mucinous breast cancer:

http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/types/rare_idc/mucinous/

From reading about mucinous breast cancer, which I and a few others on this board have, there are two types. My understanding is that both are classified under "invasive ductal."  One type is "pure" while the other is "mixed."  "Mixed" usually refers to having some "pure" as well as "ductal" characteristics.

"Pure" mucinous breast cancer is considered a "favorable" type to have.  "Mixed" mucinous breast cancer's prognostics are closer in line to traditional ductal.

If you do a search on this board, you can read other threads regarding mucinous breast cancer, also known as "colloid."

Want to also mention that pathology reports vary when describing it.  Also, VERY IMPORTANT, since mucinous breast cancer is rare and treatment relies so heavily on the pathology report, it would be a good idea to get a second pathologist to look at it, according to Dr. Britta Weigelt, a pathologist, who studies rare breast cancers.