Assay Results/Prognostic Significance

kencooperjr

My wife has quite recently been diagnosed with breast cancer (DCIS) with an overall grade of 1. After surgery the pathology report indicated the tumor size as 8mmx7mmx6mm. Five sentinal lymph nodes were examined and all five were without tumor cells.

The following data were defined at the initial biopsy: ER: 100%, HR: 100%, Her2/neu: 1.2, Ki-67: 8%

The after surgery pathology report is:                      ER: 96%,   HR: 100%, Her2/neu: 0.8, Ki-67: 42%

The numbers are close except for the Ki-67 wherein the after surgery is about five times the initial biopsy value. Is this difference normal or not? What would be the significance of this value (42%) in terms of treatment as we go forward?

Thanks for any comments/help with this question/issue.

Ken Cooper

Moderators

Hello Ken Cooper, and welcome to Breastcancer.org.

The Your Diagnosis section of the main Breastcancer.org site gives explanations of the information found in pathology reports, including Rate of Cell Growth that includes the Ki-67 test.

Please do note in the last paragraph that experts don't yet agree on how to use the results when making treatment decisions and "The other results in your report will be much more important in making informed choices."

Best wishes to both of you,

• The Mods

doxie

There is a forum just for DCIS.  You may find more help for your questions there.  So nice you are doing this to support your wife.