What does "aggressive" really mean?

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jenbal
jenbal Member Posts: 82
edited June 2014 in HER2+ (Positive) Breast Cancer
What does "aggressive" really mean?
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  • jenbal
    jenbal Member Posts: 82
    edited June 2009

    In all the reading I've done since my diagnosis, Her2/neu+ cancer is described as "aggressive" but nowhere does it say what that really means -- except for a higher rate of recurrence, which is now pretty well stomped on by herceptin. Recently I heard about 2 other women who had clean mammograms in the past year and now have Stage III and Stage IV Her2/neu+ BC. Is this what "aggressive" means -- that a tumor could go from 0 to 6cm with mets in less than a year?

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  • Sassa
    Sassa Member Posts: 1,588
    edited June 2009

    Yes, that is what aggressive means.

    My cancer was deemed to be very aggressive as the KI67 rate was above 50 % (measures the amount of cells dividing at a point in time).

     Because I moved I missed my regular time for my mammogram,  I was 6 months late in having my yearly mammogram. If I had gone in as I should have, my tumor probably would not have been detected and 1 year later (6 months after I had my mammogram because of my move), I probably would have been Stage 3 or 4 at diagnosis.

    There will be someone to blather on about have breast cancer is slow growing and is usually in the breast for a number of years before detection.  That may be true for  ER/PR positive, grade 1 (very slow rate of reproduction) tumors; it certainly doesn't apply to those of us with the aggressive (grade 3) tumors.

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  • ccbaby
    ccbaby Member Posts: 985
    edited July 2009

    My surgeon told me that very thing about my tumor being slow growing and I have probably had it for a year. then my onc told me just the opposite that it is aggressive and fast growing. I know that my tumor was fast growing because I swear it seems like it just 'was there' all of a sudden one day!

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