Updates to Breast Cancer Staging 2018

Thank you SO much for posting this. I appreciate how more diagnostic features are taken into account. I have always thought that Her2 and hormone status had to count for something...

wow thanks for sharing!

So under the new staging , does prognosis for each stage remain the same ?

This is what a veteran and well respected member of the community pm’d to me regarding this change. I posted it on another thread a while back but thought it was worth repeating.

https://cancerstaging.org/references-tools/deskreferences/Documents/AJCC%20Breast%20Cancer%20Staging%20System.pdf

Here's the deal with staging: Anatomic Staging still exists as it did before, but a new staging classification has been created, called Prognostic Stage, which incorporates grade, ER/PR status, HER2 status, and in limited situations, the Oncotype score (if it's under 11). Prognostic stage assumes that patients follow treatment guidelines since the stage assigned (and therefore the prognosis) is based on a combination of the cancer's biological & genetic make-up and the associated treatment. For example, Oncotype scores assume that the patient takes Tamoxifen, so a stage that is lowered to reflect an Oncotype score less than 11 is invalid if the patient doesn't take Tamoxifen.