Help with some terms

CookieMonster

Hi everyone,

I've been looking over some of my pathology reports recently and I can't seem to wrap my head around some of the terms therein. I'm hoping someone here can clarify them for me, I'm especially wondering which of these things are considered pre cancer and which are more "normal"

Here are the things found:

Flat epithelial atypia (FEA)

atypical sclerosing adenosis

atypical ductal hyperplasia (ADH)

TIA for any help with these.

cycle-path

I'm just going to answer the ADH one, since that's one I know off the top of my head. ADH (or (ALH) are cells that are not really regular normal ones, but not cancer either. They've undergone some changes or mutations but they aren't considered cancer.

From what I understand, the difference between high-grade ADH and low-grade DCIS is sort of a judgment call. Some pathologists might say a particular area is high-grade ADH and some other pathologists might look at the same slide and say it's low-grade DCIS. So apparently it's a continuum.

CLC

I can add something on the ADH.  I was diagnosed with ADH a year ago.  They are basically "pre-cancer."  In some significant percentage of women, those cells will grow into DCIS.  I had an excision done to remove those cells and look for any dcis or other stage cancer cells bordering the adh, since that is common.  (An excision, according to my bs, is a lumpectomy in which margin size is not the definitive measure of success...clear margins are not as necessary to achieve as in the case of dcis and other cancers).  Once I was diagnosed with ADH alone, I became a high-watch patient.  They use something called the "Gail model" to assess risk of developing breast cancer.  ADH sends that thing high up.  (It also takes other factors into account.  You can find "Gail risk calculators" on the web.)  Options included tamoxifen (I opted NOT to do that).  I went to annual mri and annual mammogram plus regular physical exams (something every 3 months).  Within one year, I was diagnosed with dcis and last week had a mastectomy for low grade dcis.

I really think it is simply a step in the continuum of ductal cancers.  There are normal cells, typical hyperplasia (normal cells in the duct, but with extra cells growing, I think), atypical ductal hyperplasia (abnormal cells in the duct, with extras), dcis/stage 0 (carcinoma cells--way more abnormal cells, with extras that have not grown out of the duct), and then stages I through IV (all of which have grown out of the duct).

Breastcancer.org has a lot of informative "articles" that explain a lot of this...if you haven't checked those out, you might try them.  (Edited to add:  Sorry, the articles don't address your terms at all that I could find).

I can't say anything about the other two items on your list.  I hope that this has been helpful.

ma111

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/

http://www.cancer.gov/