Help me understand lab results

If bad news can be good, yours is.

The "stage" of your cancer is determined by the size of your tumor  (.7cm-that's small), if any lymph nodes are involved and whether there is any spread to other places (metastasis). You can't know all until after your surgery. But the small tumor size is one piece of good news. Will you have a pre-surgery work up looking at lungs, liver and bones? I think that is standard. They will look at the lymph nodes at your surgery time.

The "grade" of your cancer is determined by your Nottingham score. It tells you how aggressive your cancer is.  5 is grade 2 and you have a low mitosis rate so your cancer is not very aggressive.  That's also good.

Estrogen, progesterone and HER-s analysis will determine if your cancer will respond well to hormone therapy. Do you mean your Dr already knows that you are ER+? If you are you will benefit from some of the newest drugs to fight recurrence.

Has your Dr already recommended mastectomy? Lumpectomy is a reasonable alternative in many cases but does almost always require follow up radiation. You need to do a lot of reading to make an informed decision.  

There is a lot to be learned from the good women of this site. Ask anything and someone will know!  Best wishes.

pam 

debra ~ Pam has given you excellent information.  In addition, you need to understand that accurately determining whether Her2 is + or - is extremely important to the treatment that will be recommended for you.  Her2+ can be a more aggressive bc, and so a drug called Herceptin is often given to women who are Her2+.  But sometimes initial lab pathololgy isn't fine tuned enough to tell whether someone is truly Her2 - or + without further testing, so your doctor will send out for a more definitive test that is referred to as a "FISH" test.  It sounds like this is what your doctor has done.     Deanna