If you prefer to get results from your doctor, tell him that and don't look at the portal and set it to not send you emails when something new is posted. You don't have to use the portal if you don't want to.

Much as we wish it was the case, our doctors aren't sitting at their desks waiting for results to come in. Your doctor is probably busy with other patients and checks for biopsy results whenever he has a chance or maybe just at a specific time of day that he sets aside for doing this. He may not see the results until tomorrow and might not have a chance to call you right away.

Don't read anything into how long it takes for the doctor to call you.

I hope your results are benign!

Hi Maeby,

The law changed in January 1 of this year. All test results must be posted for access by patient's as soon as they are available. There are good aspects to this for those of us who know how to read them but perhaps not so much for those who prefer to have a conversation. If you don't want to see the, don't click on the link. But, you can see when your Dr received the results because he/she received them at the same time as you did.

I hope the results are what you are looking for,

Jane

Good luck with your results.. I would not be able to not look! I like to see the results before seeing the Doc. My sister is like you though, she lets the Doc give her the results. Thanks jhl, I wasn't aware of the law change.

maybe, I’m sorry.

Jhl, is this a US national law you are talking about? Is it all medical results

Maybe, so sorry to hear of invasive!! Please let us know when you hear more about specifics...

Generally speaking, there is some indication that both ER and PR + is a good sign as it's more likely to respond to hormone therapy. With ER+/PR- there is a bit less response. And if ER is weak, or both are weak (like in the =< 10% range) then some of those cancer behave like triple negative.

for ex this study: PR- associated with tamoxifen resistance https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16145046/

however, this study suggests that hormone blocking should still be used as it was associated with better 10 yr survival https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32519274/

Maeby,

PR- cancers can be more aggressive - they are more likely to be larger, more likely to be grade 3, more likely to be node positive. But there are a subset of PR- cancers that are small, not high grade and that have a low Ki-67 that appear to be no more aggressive than ER+/PR+ cancers.

Poor prognosis of single hormone receptor- positive breast cancer: similar outcome as triple-negative breast cancer https://bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11...

"When we additionally analyzed according to Ki-67 level, in cases with a high level of Ki-67 (≥14.0%), the differences among the four subtypes were still shown consistently. However, in patients with a low Ki-67 level (<14.0%), the prognosis of ER + PR- tumors was not different from that of ER + PR+ tumors."

As for Tamoxifen, the results are not consistent about the effect of being PR-. The BIG 1-98 trial did not find that Tamoxifen efficacy was reduced for those who are PR-.

Prognostic and Predictive Value of Centrally Reviewed Expression of Estrogen and Progesterone Receptors in a Randomized Trial Comparing Letrozole and Tamoxifen Adjuvant Therapy for Postmenopausal Early Breast Cancer: BIG 1-98 https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JCO.2007.11....

"Our study shows that the endocrine treatment effect on DFS of postmenopausal patients with breast cancer is primarily influenced by ER status. The role of PgR could be determined only in patients with ER-expressing tumors, since few with tumors not expressing ER entered the trial. Of these, a better outcome was seen among patients with PgR-positive (≥10%) tumors—a finding consistent with the report of Bardou et al.13 Patients treated with letrozole manifested better outcome than those treated with tamoxifen regardless of their PgR status, and there was no statistical evidence of heterogeneity in the treatment effect whether PgR was considered as a categorical variable or as a continuum in the STEPP analysis.

Using real-time polymerase chain reaction assessment of ER and PgR status, Baehner et al28 found that the level of PgR was prognostic in untreated patients but not predictive of tamoxifen benefit, a finding parallel with our observation that PgR expression level did not predict the additional value of letrozole on ER-expressing tumors.

Our data do not confirm the hypothesis that aromatase inhibitors may offer a particular advantage over tamoxifen in patients whose tumors express ER but not PgR raised by Dowsett et al16 based on local laboratory PgR assessment in the ATAC trial. Our results conform more closely with the findings of no effect of PgR on relative efficacy of aromatase inhibitor and tamoxifen in the IES9 and the lack of significant difference seen in the ARNO/ABCSG trials."

What's important to know is that overall, AIs perform somewhat better for all post-menopausal women, versus Tamoxifen. Although some studies have suggested that Tamoxifen may be less effective for those who are ER+/PR-, a number of trials, including the large BIG 1-98 study, have not found this difference and instead have found that the performance of AIs vs. Tamoxifen is similar for those who have ER+/PR+/HER2- cancers or ER+/PR-/HER2- cancers. Therefore, while it is preferable that post-menopausal women taken an AI, for those who are unable to tolerate an AI because of side effects or other health concerns, Tamoxifen is a good alternative, regardless of whether the cancer is PR+ or PR-.