How significant is the Grade?

LittleMelons

Does anyone understand the tumour grade and it's signifcance for prognosis.  I gather it is made up of 3 features with a score of 1-3 being given for each, i.e. degree of tumor tubule formationtumor mitotic activity (rate of cell division)nuclear grade (cell size and uniformity)

I am grade 2 with a score of 7 divided out as follows from the path report: "Tubule formation - Minimal, less than 10% (score 3).  Nuclear Pleomorphism - marked variation in size, nucleoli, chromatin clumping, etc. (score 3).  Mitotic counts - 0 to 8 per 10 HPF (score 1) Total 7.

There is nothing about Ki-67, S-phase fraction as outlined on the BCO section on pathology reports.  Oncotype test was not done.

 Thanks for any input.

Moderators

Dear LittleMelons, 

While you wait for other members to respond, you may want to check out some information on the breastcancer.org site about tumor grade. 

We hope this helps!

The Mods 

LittleMelons

Thank you, Mods.

I am interested in the 3 factors within the grade and how they impact the prognosis.  I don't see much on the web about this.  I mean you could arrive at Grade 2 with different scores, e.g. Tubule formation 1, Nuclear Pleomorphism 3, and Mitotic rate 3, or 2,2,2 instead of 3, 3, and 1, as in my case. I don't know what Tubule formation, and Nuclear Pleomorphism are.

It would be nice to be able to ask a Pathologist.  My Onc just said "Well, it doesn't scream alarm." which didn't explain much.