Question: I recently had a breast biopsy with invasive ductal carcinoma, grade 3 and ductal carcinoma in situ. My report said “the carcinoma is estrogen and progesterone receptor negative (<5%) and negative for her2/neu over-expression (1+).” I read online that sometimes even less than 5% could still be positive for the estrogen receptor. [...]

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 [...]

I wanted to take some time to write about one of the most challenging areas in breast pathology and one that I receive countless questions about–distinguishing atypical ductal hyperplasia (ADH) from ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). While this may seem like an academic issue that doctors argue about it has MAJOR clinical implications for [...]

Question: What does triple negative mean regarding breast cancer? My doctor told me that all of the special studies the lab performed on my tumor were negative and that means it can be a more aggressive type of cancer.

I have uploaded the Tutorial on Breast Pathology, Part II which covers the basics of invasive carcinoma.  As with the other tutorials it is in pdf format.  Please feel free to comment or post suggestions for future articles. I hope you find this information useful.
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Question: I am confused about my pathology report which says my cancer is invasive ductal carcinoma, estrogen receptor negative (less than 10% of cells) and progesterone negative (0% of cells). Why does it say less than 10% for estrogen receptor is negative? Doesn’t that mean some cells are positive? My doctor said since [...]