See the updated chapter on Phyllodes Tumors in the fourth edition of Harris’ Diseases of the Breast.

My colleague, Dr. Dianne Georgian-Smith of Harvard Medical School, and I recently wrote a Letter to the Editor to the American Journal of Roentgenology discussing our views on treatment of “high risk” breast lesions diagnosed on core needle biopsy.

March 26th, 2010:  ”Practical Approaches to Challenging Breast Lesions in Everyday Practice” at the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology annual meeting, Washington D.C.
May 3, 2010: “Controversies on High Risk Lesions at Core Biopsy: Radiology and Pathology Perspectives” at the 2010 Annual meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society, San Diego.

I hope you read this article on the importance of having a breast pathologist read your biopsy.  I have posted this before, but it’s such an important “white paper” report from Komen that I think it deserves more discussion.
When confronted with a breast health issue, many patients seek out a particular breast center or a [...]

Question: I am in the Uk and my wife (42) has Grade 2 breast cancer 2 nodes er+ and pr + my question is about her path report: the HER2 was registered at 2.2 after the FISH test – does this mean that herceptin will work or is it to borderline to benefit? As the [...]

Question: I have been diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma. The biopsy results said the tumor was ER and PR positive, and HER2 negative, and a grade 2. However, after surgery, the pathology report said ER positive, PR negative, and didn’t mention the HER2 status at all. It also changed the grade down to a 1. [...]

Question: What is a sarcomatoid carcinoma? My core biopsy report said “invasive carcinoma with spindle cell features, cannot rule out sarcomatoid carcinoma.”

I’ve written before about the controversy over lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS) and whether it is just a marker of increased risk or possibly a precursor to invasive carcinoma, like ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). The reason it was felt to be just a marker of increased risk was that most early studies showed that [...]

Question: I had a core biopsy for calcium in my right breast that showed “focal atypical lobular hyperplasia” – my doctor recommended surgery but I chose to get a second opinion and that said my biopsy was benign and said there was no atypical lobular hyperplasia. I would prefer not to have surgery but [...]

Everyone has heard of the importance of estrogen and progesterone receptors in breast cancer–but how many of you have heard of the possible role of androgen receptors (AR) in breast cancer?
I have a particular interest in this subject as we published an article several years ago that found AR positivity in 49% of estrogen receptor [...]