Anyone have 2 stages of breast cancer on both breasts

My-Lan28

Hi Ladies

I am new in this forum. I was diagnosed Breast Cancer on August, 2020 , I had cancer with 2 stages on both of my breast. My left breast had stage0 DCIS 5cm (grade 3) and beside it there were stage 1B IDC with multi focal tumors ( grade 2) of 1.7cm , 0.8cm, 0.3cm, 0.2cm, 0.2cm. My right breast again I had stage0 DCIS 0.8cm ( grade 2) and stage1A IDC 0.9cm (grade 2). No lymph nodes involved.

I done all my treatments included of Bilateral Mastectomy, 4 chemos, 15 radiation and taking Tamoxifen. Right after my surgery my oncologist send my breast cancer sample to USA to get mamma print to see i am benefit from chemo. When the result come back with 19% risk of recurrence but I took chemos, radiation and Tamoxifen, it will bring down to 7% of risk of recurrence. I am very scare, I had 2 young kids 7 and 13. I am 46 this year. Anyone long term BC survivors whom had the same condition like my case , please contact me, give me some hope, support for this journey.

Beesie

My-Lan,

The way staging is done in North America (and Europe, I believe), with your diagnosis you would not be considered to have two stages of breast cancer in each breast.

Most IDC develops from DCIS, so it's very common to have DCIS and IDC together in one breast. In fact about 80% of IDC diagnoses include some DCIS. Because the IDC is the more serious condition, the staging and treatment plan is based on the IDC - the DCIS needs to be surgically removed but it does not count in the staging.

While DCIS is Stage 0 breast cancer, this staging only applies when the entire diagnosis is pure DCIS, with no invasive cancer also found. So in your case, because you have invasive cancer, the DCIS is ignored in the staging and your staging would be Stage IB for your left breast and Stage IA for your right breast.

(As a side note, for those who complete their personal profiles on this website, the diagnosis inputs allows people to separately stage DCIS and IDC within a single diagnosis. This is not correct. )

exbrnxgrl

my-lan,

I agree with beesie's comments. I do understand you’re asking about this because when I was dx'ed I had (literally) no idea that there were different types of bc. I also had DCIS along with my IDC and thought I was a bc overachiever 🤷🏻♀️. As Beesie noted this is very, very common. Take care.