Pregnant and diagnosed with invasive breast cancer

Lynn Im so sorry that you are going thru this. I just wanted to give you a hug and tell you someone will be around soon who can give you advice. Also use the search function and type pregnant or pregnancy and it should pull up some threads that will help. Prayer

Lynne, I'm so sorry; it's never a good time to be diagnosed with breast cancer, but being diagnosed when you are pregnant is just not fair! You should be experiencing the joy and anticipation of your upcoming birth, not worrying about a breast cancer diagnosis.

First thing you should do is get a copy of your pathology reports from your biopsy and surgery, so that you have all the information about your diagnosis. In the title of your post, you mention invasive cancer, but then you say that you've been diagnosed with DCIS. What you need to clearly understand is whether your diagnosis is DCIS (Stage 0), DCIS-Mi (Stage I), or IDC (Stage I or higher). The tests you receive and the treatment options presented to you might vary considerably depending on your diagnosis. Staging, tests and treatment recommendations are always based on the most serious condition that the patient presents with.

• DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) is non-invasive, and a diagnosis of "DCIS" is always Stage 0. If you have invasive cancer (probably in addition to some DCIS - they are often found together), it means that your diagnosis isn't considered to be Stage 0 DCIS, but instead is based on the amount of invasive cancer you have.

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• The earliest Stage I (invasive cancer) diagnosis is DCIS-Mi. DCIS-Mi is considered to be the diagnosis when someone has DCIS along with a very tiny amount of invasive cancer - which is no larger than 1mm in size and is called a 'micro-invasion'. That was my diagnosis. And that's what this particular discussion forum is about.

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• If the size of the invasive tumor is larger than 1mm, or if there is nodal involvement (as it appears that you have), then the diagnosis is Stage I (or higher) IDC (invasive ductal carcinoma). The stage is determined based on the size of the tumor and the amount of nodal involvement.

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• As I mentioned, it it is common to have IDC and DCIS together. Because DCIS is non-invasive and is the least serious condition (vs. invasive cancer and nodal involvement), if someone has DCIS in addition to either invasive cancer and/or nodal involvement, while the DCIS will need to be surgically removed, it will otherwise be ignored - simply because any treatment that is recommended to address the invasive cancer/nodal involvement will be more than adequate to address the DCIS.

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You mentioned that you have invasive cancer and cancer in your lymph node. If this is the case, this means that even though you may also have DCIS, your diagnosis is at least Stage IB IDC. I would suggest therefore that you ignore the link that the Moderators provided about DCIS, because the information in there will not apply to your situation. Your treatment plan might be quite different than the treatment plan for someone who has Stage 0 DCIS.

I'd also suggest that you might want to ask the Moderators to move your post to either the IDC Forum or the Just Diagnosed Forum, so that you can get support from others with a similar diagnosis. This forum isn't very busy, so not many people will see your post here, and the people who read this forum probably will have different tests, and a different treatment plan, than you. You will get more relevant and helpful support in one of the other forums.

Sending (((Hugs)))

Edited to clarify some of the explanations.