Making sense of path report

Paco

I just got back from a visit to radiology for an MRI. I was dx with DCIS after a mammogram, had a CNB done last week Thursday and just got the preliminary results.

It says DCIS with solid and cribiform patterns and high nuclear grade (no number assigned?) Tumor necrosis and tumor calcifications present.

Estro receptor: 95% positive  prognostic significance: favorable  reference range: > 1%

Prog receptor: 75% positive prognostic significance: favorable  reference range: > 1%

I know I'll have to wait for the MRI results to come back and I have an appointment with a breast surgeon but not until January 22 at a comprehensive cancer institute (not going back to breast center).

I am getting ahead of myself but I really don't want radiation. Hoping to be able to avoid it with hormonal therapy (or is that worse?)

Georgia1

Good morning Kelly. While the Internet certainly has horror stories about radiation and hormone therapy, the fact is that most of us tolerate both of them just fine. And we do both because they do different things: radiation reduces your odds of recurrence in the same breast, and hormone therapy reduces your chance of cancer in the rest of your body. So they're complementary.

That said, once you are through surgery you will have several choices to make so it's great for you to do some research now. We are here to help.