Knowing the stage of your breast cancer helps your medical team determine how big the cancer is and if it has spread. This helps them guide your therapy and provide reliable prognostic information.
In general, staging is done following your surgery, either after lumpectomy or mastectomy. It usually includes evaluation of the lymph nodes in your [...]
In the past decade, core needle biopsy has taken over fine needle aspiration (FNA) as the main tool for diagnosing image-detected or palpable breast lesions. While this biopsy technique is just a sample, cores of breast tissue are removed vs. individual cells as in FNA and thus the pathologist has more information to make an [...]
Fibroadenoma
Fibroadenoma is the most common benign tumor in the female breast. They generally occur in younger women but can be seen in post-menopausal women as well. Most of the time they present as a lump in the breast, but they can also be found incidentally on a breast radiology exam.
To a pathologist, a fibroadenoma has [...]
The term metaplastic carcinoma refers to a group of invasive carcinomas that appear different from all other types of invasive carcinoma because they have a unique appearance under the microscope, including having bone or cartilage or sometimes not looking at all like a typical invasive carcinoma.
There are several types of metaplastic carcinoma including spindle cell [...]
One of the most frightening things to hear from your doctor is that you need to have a breast biopsy. What can be equally difficult is the amount of time it takes from your biopsy to hearing the biopsy results from your doctor. Since we believe patients are best served by having as [...]
A pathologist is a medical doctor who has spent an additional 3-4 years of residency training following graduation from medical school. Following residency, many pathologists seek out additional specialty training in the way of a fellowship.
If you have had a breast biopsy or breast surgery, a pathologist is the doctor who decides on your [...]
Most invasive carcinomas of the breast are invasive carcinoma NST (no special type), also called invasive ductal carcinoma. These account for approximately 65-75 % of invasive carcinomas. The remaining invasive carcinomas are referred to as “special type.” The most common among the special types is invasive lobular carcinoma which is the second [...]
In the breast, there are two types of carcinoma in situ: ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) and lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS). In situ implies that the carcinoma cells have not yet escaped the confines of the ducts and lobules of the breast. (Once carcinoma cells leave the ducts and lobules and invade the [...]
HER2 (also called c-erbB-2) stands for human epidermal growth factor receptor-2. It is a protein on the surface of cells that can be over-expressed (too much of the protein) in approximately 20% of breast cancers. HER2 over-expression is usually associated with a worse prognosis but it also is predictive of response to certain [...]
An invasive, or infiltrating, carcinoma refers to a cancer that has invaded beyond the confines of the ducts and lobules in the breast. This is different from carcinoma in situ, which has not invaded the surrounding breast tissue.
The vast majority of invasive carcinomas are called invasive ductal carcinomas, but also may be referred to as: [...]
