If I read one more post saying DCIS isn't cancer

Once again Kathy, you've had the courage to bring up a tough subject and jelson I just loved your metaphor of bunny fluffs!!

I had a radiation oncologist tell me that this was as benign a breast cancer as possible.  Huh?  I've never heard of a benign cancer and now I should begin 8 weeks of radiation? Of course when I calm down I understand what they mean is I'm not stage I-IV, but talk about conflicting messages...I also now realize that whatever label docs put on it, stage 0 treatments that are recommended aren't what I thought they would be for a stage 0 cancer! Where are my bunny fluff treatments?

At the risk of adding insult to injury... http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/715586

DCIS is cancer.It is also multi-focal disease which makes proper treatment even more important.

I had tonnes of DCIS and also much invasive cancer. I also had surprise diagnosis of DCIS in my opposite breast which everybody told me did not have to be removed. Glad to have done so 7 years ago or I would be dealing with it again right now likely.

Michelle

Why do some docs consider DCIS to be "pre-cancer"???? At my first oncologist visit this week, I was told that "my pre-cancerous" condition has a typical treatment of surgery, rads, then Tamoxifen. OK, well if it's pre-cancerous, then why did I just have surgery and radiation??? I wish these docs would get their nomenclature straight. Oh, and I felt better when she called it "pre-cancer".... sounded better than cancer to me, but then I pinched myself and made myself wake up....

Not if, to them, the definition of cancer IS invasion.

They should just give us an injection of magic healing stuff and leave us and our Bunny Fluffs alone.

Oh sweatyspice you just made me laugh (laughing at the bunny fluffs comment). THANK YOU SO MUCH....you have NO IDEA (well yes you probably do have an idea) of how much I needed to laugh!

HAAA!  Let's all change our signature lines - "Diagnosis, 11/9/09: 1.4 cm Bunny Fluff, Grade 2.  Magic dust sprinkled in on 12/2/09." 

Whheeee!  And we can hold hands in a big circle, with our oncologists, and sing Kumbaya, and roast some fluffy, fluffy marshmallows!  Yaaaay!

I am the (self-proclaimed) Queen of Second Opinions.

Just claiming my title.

I have done the BC route and occasionally I'm asked what kind of therapy I had? Then they say 'How lucky' I am, and was it really cancer then? (Hmmm, lucky) Isn't a BiLat enough? I guess there are always if(s), and(s) or but(s) to everything. Noone will really understand till it happens to themselves or a loved one.

bookart, I am so sorry to hear about your mother. Prayers to you.

-catherine

Now that I think of it more, my PS said 'I picked the good cancer'.

Believe me, DCIS is cancer.  Maybe an early form, but it is cancer.  In 1999 I was diagnosed with early DCIS ( calcifications only) and had a mastectomy ( my choice - I didn't want a lumpectomy and radiation.  I wanted to be done with it.).  The mastectomy was thought to be a cure and I would never have to worry about it again.  In January 2010 I was diagnosed with mets to the spine from that DCIS.  Don't freak out - I am just one of the lucky 1%. I am doing well.  There was a time I wondered if i needed the surgery at all because I too had heard DCIS was not really cancer.  I don't believe that anymore. 

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I don't even tell anyone my BC was DCIS and is considered "pre-cancer"....I just say cancer....I had a BMX.  It was caught early, before it was invasive.  I was blessed....as my BS said, I was a "mammogram poster child"....

because of my situation, several of my friends who had put off their mammos had them done - so I feel that some of my mission was accomplished.....

And you know what?  It's really no one's business what kind of BC I had.....it's enough for them to know I had BC and I had to lose both breasts in order to keep from having it (possibly) become invasive....

just my two cents.....

besides, to ME, it will ALWAYS be cancer....it is, it was...for it took something away from me, and gave something to me, too...

blessings..robin

DCIS IS CANCER.  If its not, someone owes me two breasts!  My DCIS did not show up on a mammagram or ultrasound.  Had I listened to the radiation I would have gone home blissfully unaware I was walking around with cancer.  A MRI finally found it in one breast only, the other was 'normal.'  I would have loved to be able to believe the radiologist except for one small symptom -- I had blood coming out of my left breast.  I just figured this couldn't be good and my BS agreed.

I elected a BMX for many reasons.  Turns out the right 'normal' breast had DCIS too!

If its not cancer - what are the abnormal cells if not cancer?

I did go to Georgetown university hospital for a second opinion.  NO ONE was telling me to just sit back and see what happens.

And I am sick and tired of people telling me I didn't have cancer or I had the 'good kind' of cancer.

IHEARTu ... yes, that was good of you to choose the correct cancer (oh, sorry, non-invastive" non-cancer.

And I don't like  being dismissed or have my 'cancer' trivilized by people who don't have a clue as to what they are talking about including doctors.

Sorry for the rant but, boy, that felt good!

I too was diagnosed with dcis and have never been told by anyone that it is "less than" what it is.  Cancer.  I don't even understand the thinking there.  I had the dissection of the lymphnodes and out of 3, one was positive.  Went through chemo then had a bi lateral mastectomy and am gearing up for my diep flap surgery.  I met many many many wonderful people in chemo who definitely were battling more aggressive cancers than I and they would be there for longer than I, but cancer is cancer and have never been told any different.  So, for those of you who have, I am sorry others ignorance and you go girls......................

KathrynMary, did you have invasive cancer along with the DCIS?  I ask that because pure DCIS, non-invasive Stage 0 cancer, is completely confined to the milk ducts of the breast and therefore cannot travel to the nodes. Because of this, women who have pure DCIS do not get chemo.  Since you had a positive node, and since you were given chemo, I'm guessing that you must have had some invasive cancer. It's very common to have invasive cancer along with DCIS - in fact most invasive cancer develops from DCIS.  When the two are found together, because the invasive cancer is the more serious condition, the staging and treatment is determined by the amount and grade of the invasive cancer.  The DCIS needs to be removed but other than that, it's pretty much ignored because anything done to treat the invasive cancer will be sufficient to address the DCIS.

As for DCIS being the "good" cancer, well, "good" is obviously a relative term.  It's not good to have breast cancer.  It's not good to require surgery, have rads, lose your breast.  It's not good to have to deal with the emotional turmoil that a diagnosis of cancer brings.  It's not good to have your world and your life turned upside down.  It's not good to stop trusting your body.  All that stinks.  But it is good to not need chemo, to not need Herceptin, to not have to worry about distant recurrence (mets).  And it is good to have the only breast cancer that can be considered cured.  Because DCIS cannot travel to the nodes or into the bloodstream, it cannot move outside of the breast.  So if all the cancer cells are removed from the breast, someone with DCIS is considered cured - there is no risk that a rogue cancer cell may be out there floating around in your body, waiting to take hold and develop as mets in 3 years or 5 years or 12 years or 20 years.  While most women who have invasive cancer are also cured, they can never actually know this for sure (until in old age they die of something else).  Anyone who's had any amount of invasive cancer always faces the uncertainty of wondering whether a rogue cell might be waiting to take hold.

I get angry when DCIS is called a pre-cancer. I get angry when the risks of DCIS, particularly high grade DCIS, are downplayed. I get angy when it's not appreciated that women diagnosed with DCIS go through scary, painful and life-and-body changing treatments.  I get angry when it's not understood that women diagnosed with DCIS go through emotional turmoil, just like anyone else diagnosed with breast cancer.  But I also think that it's important to have perspective and recognize that it could have been a lot worse than DCIS.