Will I Die Of Breast Cancer
This is a difficult question to answer early in your cancer care but it is still worth asking. Many people just diagnosed with cancer have no idea how much of a risk to their life their unique situation poses. Most breast cancers carry a low risk of recurrence, especially early-stage cancers. The answer is usually reassuring.
What Is The Survival Outlook For Breast Cancer
According to the National Cancer Institute , the percentage of patients surviving five years after diagnosis is:
- 99 percent for breast cancer that is still local to the breast
- 86 percent for breast cancer that has spread just outside the breast
- 29 percent for breast cancer that has spread to more distant parts of the body
The NCI also lists the five-year survival rate for breast cancer overall as 90.6 percent for women and 83 percent for men.
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What Is Triple Negative Breast Cancer
A diagnosis of triple negative breast cancer means that the three most common types of receptors known to fuel most breast cancer growthestrogen, progesterone, and the HER-2/neu gene are not present in the cancer tumor. This means that the breast cancer cells have tested negative for hormone epidermal growth factor receptor 2 , estrogen receptors , and progesterone receptors .
Since the tumor cells lack the necessary receptors, common treatments like hormone therapy and drugs that target estrogen, progesterone, and HER-2 are ineffective. Using chemotherapy to treat triple negative breast cancer is still an effective option. In fact, triple negative breast cancer may respond even better to chemotherapy in the earlier stages than many other forms of cancer.
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Stage 2 Breast Cancer Staging
To understand what stage 2 breast cancer means, it helps to know more about breast cancer staging. You know you have breast cancer, but your healthcare professional needs to know how big it is, if it has spread beyond the breast, and what biomarkers the cancer cells are expressing. Collectively, this is the pathologic, or surgical, stage of breast cancer. It is complex but can provide an accurate description of your condition.
The surgical stage of breast cancer helps you and your doctor make treatment decisions and understand your outlook.
There are two main systems for staging breast cancer: the number staging system and the tumor-node-metastasis staging system, which the American Joint Committee on Cancer introduced.
The TNM staging system is a global standard for classifying the extent of cancer spread. This system has numbers following the categories T, N, and M to give more details about the cancer. Lower numbers indicate an earlier stage of breast cancer.
Survival Rates And Mortality Rates
Survival depends on mortality. You start with 100 percent of the people in the group.
100 percent mortality rate = survival rate
Say, the mortality rate in the group of people is 5 percent. Survival would be 95 percent .
Similarly, the number of people in a group who survive depends on the number of people who die. Say, 500 people are in the group and 1 person dies. This means 499 people survived .
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Histopathological Classification Of Breast Cancer
Table 1 describes the histologic classification of breast cancer based on tumor location. Infiltrating or invasive ductal cancer is the most common breast cancerhistologic type and comprises 70% to 80% of all cases.
| Tumor Location |
|---|
| Paget disease with intraductal carcinoma |
| Paget disease with invasive ductal carcinoma |
| Other |
- Primary lymphoma.
References
Outlook By Seer Stage
In the United States, healthcare professionals typically calculate the outlook for people with cancer using the SEER database.
All cases of stage 2 cancer are localized or regional, with cancer that has not spread beyond the breast tissue or nearby lymph nodes.
The relative survival rate for people with cancer compares their likelihood of survival during a given period with that of the general population.
For example, if the 5-year relative survival rate for a stage of cancer is 90%, people with that stage of cancer are 90% as likely as people without cancer to live for a minimum of 5 years after diagnosis, according to the
Receiving a cancer diagnosis can be frightening and overwhelming. However, it is important to get as much information as possible about the cancer itself, the next steps, and the treatment options available.
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Survival Rates For Breast Cancer
Survival rates can give you an idea of what percentage of people with the same type and stage of cancer are still alive a certain amount of time after they were diagnosed. They cant tell you how long you will live, but they may help give you a better understanding of how likely it is that your treatment will be successful.
Keep in mind that survival rates are estimates and are often based on previous outcomes of large numbers of people who had a specific cancer, but they cant predict what will happen in any particular persons case. These statistics can be confusing and may lead you to have more questions. Talk with your doctor, who is familiar with your situation, about how these numbers may apply to you.
Preexisting Type 2 Diabetes Tied To Later Stage Of Cancer Diagnosis
FRIDAY, Dec. 2, 2022 — Individuals with type 2 diabetes face an increased risk for advanced tumor stage at cancer diagnosis, particularly for nonscreenable cancers, according to a study presented at the annual European Breast Cancer Conference, held from Nov. 16 to 18 in Barcelona, Spain.
Anna Jansana, Ph.D., from the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, and colleagues examined whether preexisting cardiometabolic diseases are associated with stage at cancer diagnosis. The analysis included 400,577 participants in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort with an incident diagnosis of cardiometabolic diseases prior to cancer.
The researchers found that during a median 15 years of follow-up, there were 11,945 incident cancers, of which 4.8 percent were diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, 7.1 percent were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and 1.3 percent were diagnosed with both. When excluding screenable cancers , individuals with type 2 diabetes were more likely to be diagnosed with metastatic cancer at diagnosis versus individuals with neither diabetes nor cardiovascular disease .
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Stage 2 Breast Cancer: Treatment And Prognosis
- Breast cancer is diagnosed as stage 2 if theres a tumor greater than 20 millimeters in size, if cancer cells are found in the lymph nodes, or both.
- Stage 2 breast cancer treatment may include some combination of surgery, lymph node dissection, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy.
- The prognosis for stage 2 breast cancer is favorable, with a five-year-survival rate of 86 percent.
Cancers, including breast cancer, are classified into stages, based on how far the cancer has progressed. Doctors determine the stage of a persons breast cancer to help select the best treatment options and estimate a prognosis . Stage 2 breast cancer is a form of early-stage breast cancer, meaning the cancer has not yet metastasized to distant organs.
In this article, well look at what it means to have stage 2 breast cancer, what treatment options are available for this type of cancer, and what the prognosis is for people with the condition.
How Big Is Stage 2 Breast Cancer
Stage 2 breast cancer denotes one of the following: cancer is no larger than 2 centimeters but has extended to the lymph nodes in the armpit it is between 2 and 5 centimeter s and might have extended to the lymph nodes in the armpit cancer is larger than 5 centimeters but has not extended to the lymph nodes in the ar
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How Serious Is Stage 2 Breast Cancer
Stage 2 breast cancer is considered invasive, meaning that cancer cells have broken out of the ducts or lobules of the breast. This is not the same as metastatic breast cancer. 4 It means that abnormal cells have passed through a thin layer of tissue called the basement membrane and have the potential to spread.
Is Breast Cancer Curable
When caught early, breast cancer is extremely treatable. Currently, the average five-year relative survival rate for invasive breast cancer is 90%. But when the cancer is localized, meaning theres no sign the cancer has spread outside of the breast, that rate is 99%.
Relative survival rate compares people with the same type and stage of cancer to the overall population. This is what the American Cancer Society uses to talk about survival rates.
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Supporting Someone With Breast Cancer
If youre reading this because theres a breast cancer survivor in your life, youre already being supportive.
Maybe you dont know what to say or fear saying the wrong thing. Say something anyway. Dont let breast cancer go unmentioned. The best thing you can do now is to be there and let them lead the way.
People with breast cancer may feel obligated to act with confidence and have a positive attitude. That may mask whats really going on. Let them know they can be real with you, then listen without judgment.
Offer to help in a concrete way. Can you prepare a meal? Do some chores? Share a movie night? Let them know what youre willing to do. But take them at their word. If they dont want help, dont push it. Just making the offer lets them know you care.
The end of treatment is not the end of the experience. There are many adjustments ahead. Some things may never return to the way they were, but change isnt always a bad thing.
Ajcc Pathological Prognostic Stage Groups
The Pathological Prognostic Stage applies to patients with invasive breast cancer initially treated with surgery. It includes all information used for clinical staging, surgical findings, and pathological findings following surgery to remove the tumor. Pathological Prognostic Stage is not used for patients treated with neoadjuvant therapy before surgery to remove the tumor.
References
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Tnm Staging And Stage 2 Classification
In addition to using the numerical stage classifications, healthcare professionals also describe tumors using the tumor, node, metastasis staging system that the American Joint Committee on Cancer issued.
In this system, T describes tumor size, N describes the presence of cancer cells in the lymph nodes, and M describes whether or not the cancer has spread to other areas of the body.
The classifications for tumor size are:
- TX: Healthcare professionals cannot measure primary tumor size.
- T0: Healthcare professionals cannot find a tumor.
- T1: The tumor is smaller than 2 centimeters .
- T2: The tumor measures 25 cm.
- T2: The tumor is larger than 5 cm.
- T4: The tumor has spread beyond the breast tissue and lymph nodes or is inflammatory.
The classifications for lymph node involvement are:
- NX: Healthcare professionals cannot assess the lymph nodes.
- N0: The cancer has not spread to the surrounding nodes.
- N1, N2, N3: These indicate the number of nodes involved.
The classifications for metastasis are:
- M0: There is no sign that the cancer has spread .
- M1: The cancer has spread to another area of the body.
- MX: The cancer spread is not measurable.
Node : Has The Cancer Spread To The Lymph Nodes
More specifically, which lymph nodes and how many? Lymph node staging is very complex. For the purposes of this article, the higher the number, the greater the number of lymph nodes affected:
- NX: It is not possible to evaluate lymph node involvement, such as if the nodes near the breast have already been removed before formal staging.
- N0: There are no signs of cancer in the lymph nodes near the breast.
- N1: Cancer cells are in one to three lymph nodes close to the breast, such as under the arm.
- N2: Cancer cells are in four to nine underarm lymph nodes, or they have enlarged a lymph node in the breast.
- N3: Cancer cells are in 10 or more lymph nodes under the arm or in lymph nodes farther away from the breast, such as in the collarbone.
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Side Effects And Complications
All treatments have some side effects that range from mild to severe. Most clear up when treatment ends, but there can be some lasting complications.
Its important to tell your oncologist about all symptoms, even if they seem minor. Your healthcare team will work with you to ease side effects and deal with complications.
What Is The Prognosis For Triple Negative Breast Cancer
Triple negative breast cancer can be more aggressive and difficult to treat. Also, the cancer is more likely to spread and recur. The stage of breast cancer and the grade of the tumor will influence your prognosis. Research is being done currently to create drug therapies that are specific for triple negative breast cancer.
Interested in learning more? i3Health is hosting an upcoming webinar Metastatic Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Applying Treatment Advances to Personalized Care. Learn more here.
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What Are The Symptoms Of Stage Ii Breast Cancer
- Lump in the breast or under the armpit
- Thickening or swelling of the breast
- Irritation or dimpling of breast skin
- Pain in the nipple area or the breast in general
- Discharge from the nipple
- Any change in shape or size of the breast
But Dr. Larkin points out that in the case of Stage II breast cancer, there may be no symptoms at all which is why it is so important to get your annual mammogram.
Note: The CDC has a program called the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program, designed to make sure that women who are uninsured, under-insured and low-income get access to screening for breast cancer, as well as diagnostic and treatment help. The programs interactive map lets you click on your state to get local information.
What are the treatments for stage II breast cancer?
The treatments for stage II cancer depend not only on the tumor size and its biologic markers, but also your age, overall health and personal preferences. There are usually multiple modalities of treatment one treatment in and of itself is usually not enough, says Dr. Maxwell. The goal of the treatment is to, number one, get rid of the tumor, and number two, prevent it from coming back as much as possible. The plan will involve some combination of the following:
Examples Of Mortality Rates Versus Number Of Deaths
Say, town A has a population of 100,000 and town B has a population of 1,000. Over a year, say there are 100 breast cancer deaths in town A and 100 breast cancer deaths in town B.
The number of breast cancer deaths in each town is the same. However, many more people live in town A than live in town B. So, the mortality rates are quite different.
In town A, there were 10 breast cancer deaths among 100,000 people. This means the mortality rate was less than 1 percent .
In town B, the mortality rate was 10 percent .
Although the number of deaths was the same in town A and town B, the mortality rate was much higher in town B than in town A .
Lets look at another example. In 2022, its estimated among women there will be :
- 100 breast cancer deaths in Washington, D.C.
- 730 breast cancer deaths in Alabama
- 4,690 breast cancer deaths in California
Of the 3, California has the highest number of breast cancers. However, that doesnt mean it has the highest breast cancer rate. These numbers dont take into account the number of women who live in each place. Fewer women live in Alabama and Washington, D.C. than live in California.
Other factors may vary by place as well, such as the age and race/ethnicity of women. So, to compare breast cancer mortality rates, we need to look at mortality rates.
In 2022, the estimated mortality rates are :
- 25 per 100,000 women in Washington, D.C.
- 21 per 100,000 women in Alabama 22
- 19 per 100,000 women in California 20
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