Question:) My sister in law was just diagnosed

9mm is teensy. I had a 9 cm tumor, yes maybe bit smaller than a baseball. Grade 3 means quickly-dividing cells, so it's aggressive. Lymphovascular invasion absent = very good thing, same as for me - no sign of cancer cells in lymph or blood. Her 2 = she has an overexpression of the her 2 gene (I may not have got that perfectly right as is does not apply to me.

You do not state her stage, or maybe she's not been told. You don't state if any lymph nodes were positive for breast cancer cells, which is a biggie. But with that size and no lymph nodes invaded my guess is stage 2B which is early stage and highly treatable & doable - please give your bro a big hug & maybe a few tranquillizers & tell him (so far as i can tell) it's OK stop planning the funeral! She'll probably have a mastectomy (not awful). I had MX, chemo (for insurance in case a few cells had escaped to distant places simply because of the tumour size) and rads for extra insurance.

So, I had as large a tumor in 2008 and here I am! My luck was that, as my breast surgeon said, it wasn't the travellin' kind. Her 2 means she will likely have to receive IV infusions for that, which are very good for her 2 diagnosis.

Correct me, anyone else reading this, as things have changed somewhat since I was Dxd.

So sorry to hear of your sister-in-laws lump. 9mm is the size of a pea but 9cm is about 4.5 inches long. There are many types of breast cancer, so you need to have specific details to understand implications fully.

You may find reading HER2 Status of interest, but you need to know if the report says HER2 - (good) or HER2+ before worrying about that gene.

Invasions absent sounds good but you really ned to wait for the full interpretation from her Doctor. Tell her to write down questions she wants to ask before appointment, as is so easy to forget when in with Doctor. Knowledge is power and enables better rational assessments and questions, so is very important. Hopefully, someone else is going with her as two sets of ears hear more that one and have the other op[erson write down details discussed for later referral.

We wish her the best but it is a very stressful time for all involved.

The Mods

Idon'tlikethis, Your sister-in-law will know after her appt on Thursday. I highly recommend she asks for a copy of the pathology report. These appointments are stressful, and she will most likely forget information told to her. Grade 3 is more aggressive (fast growing), which might explain why her cancer grew so large, so quickly. Chemo works very well on grade 3 tumors. It is important to find out what kind of cancer she has, and the cancer's ER, PR and HER2 status.

I had a lot of tissue removed during my lumpectomy.... more than a softball, so it really depends on how large her breast is now, and where the cancer is within the breast. This may be an option. I want to mention that I had oncoplastic surgery. The cancer was removed by my SO, and a plastic surgeon rearranged my remaining breast tissue so I have a smaller, higher breast. Then the plastic surgeon reduced and lifted the other breast so they would match. So I woke up with the cancer removed, and smaller, higher breasts.

Keep us posted!

The other thing that you want to look for on the pathology report is whether she is ER, PR and HER2 + or -. There are targeted therapies, in addition to rads and chemo, for ER+ and HER2+ women. This will impact treatment. I agree with PoppyK, she should definitely get a copy of her pathology report. There is a lot there and it is too difficult to digest when in panic mode. We'll be thinking about her and wishing her the best.

I immediately had a CT, an MRI, bone scan and a PET after DX. The PET necessaitated a biopsy of an area along my jaw as it ''lit up' but nothing showed up in the biopsy. In the 5+ yrs since DX, I have had a couple of localized scans just to be on the 'safe side' for issues that came up - nothing 'nasty' ever showed up.

Remember that all types of BC are not the same and there are different protocols. Different Drs have different ideas of what is appropriate for different ones of us. In other words - there is no 'One Size Fits All' when it comes to BC or us individually.