This may be a silly question.... but here goes

Janet456

It also doesn't apply to me but I have been wondering and can't find an answer anywhere else.

If following a lumpectomy for DCIS, - then IDC is found only in the centre of the DCIS is it still classed as invasive?

I know IDC is invasive but if the DCIS cells haven't yet worked out how to break free from the duct, and the IDC is in the centre of it only, then it also cannot have broken free from the duct? - can it?

Just wondering. 

Beesie

Janet, what you described can't happen.  A DCIS cell and an IDC cell are the same cell.  IDC doesn't develop separately or within a group of DCIS cells.  IDC happens when the DCIS cell breaks through the milk duct.  That's when that DCIS cell become reclassified as being an IDC cell. 

This picture might help explain this:

http://www.breastcancer.org/pictures/types/dcis/dcis_range.jsp

Janet456

Thanks Beesie - that's what I couldn't understand, i.e. them the being the same cells.  I was thinking that IDC was found as it's own tumor inside the DCIS.

I knew you'd have the answer - thank you x