Stage 3 Breast Cancer
Stage 3 means that the cancer has spread from the breast to lymph nodes close to the breast or to the skin of the breast or to the chest wall.
It is also called locally advanced breast cancer.
The stage of a cancer tells you how big it is and how far it has spread. It helps your doctor decide which treatment you need.
Staging for breast cancer is very complex. Many different factors are considered before doctors can confirm your final stage. For example, they also use a sample of your cancer to test for:
- receptors for the female hormones
- HER2 status
- the grade of your cancer
You may also have a CT scan to check that the cancer has not spread to other parts of your body.
Do speak to your breast doctor or nurse if you have any questions about staging.;
Treatment For Stage 1 Breast Cancer
Doctors can offer a variety of treatment options for stage 1 breast cancer, although surgery is the primary treatment.
Surgery
A lumpectomy or mastectomy are both viable surgical options for people with stage 1 breast cancer. A doctor will decide what surgery is most appropriate depending on the location of the primary tumor, how large it is, the size of the breast, family history, genetics, and the persons preference.
Radiation therapy
Radiation therapy is a standard treatment for stage 1 breast cancer. However, a doctor may not recommend radiation therapy for people over 70 years old, particularly if hormone therapy is suitable.
Hormone therapy
If the breast cancer is ER+ or PR+, hormone therapy may be effective. Hormone therapy works by preventing the growth of estrogen, which helps cancer grow. Hormone therapy can reach cancer cells in the breast as well as other areas of the body and reduces the risk of the cancer coming back.
Chemotherapy
Before recommending chemotherapy, a doctor will test to see whether the cancer is hormone receptive.
If the test results show that the cancer is not receptive to estrogen and progesterone or to another protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 , it is known as triple-negative breast cancer .
Hormone therapy is ineffective against this cancer type, and people who have TNBC will usually need chemotherapy.
Stage 2 breast cancer also has subcategories known as 2A and 2B.
Stage 2A breast cancer is an invasive cancer where:
Stage 4 Breast Cancer
Stage 4 breast cancer is also known as secondary breast cancer.
Stage 4 breast cancer means:
- The tumour can be any size
- The lymph nodes may or may not contain cancer cells
- The cancer has spread to other parts of the body such as the bones, lungs, liver or brain
If your cancer is found in the lymph nodes under the arm but nowhere else in the body you do not have stage 4 breast cancer.
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Breast Cancer Stage: What Do They Mean
Stages are numbers used to describe how far a cancer has advanced and where it has spread in the body. Cancer that has not spread beyond your breast is considered local.
Regional cancer has spread into the breast skin, chest structures, and lymph nodes. When cancer spreads to other parts of the body, it is considered distant since it exists far away from just the breasts.
Your prognosis, or your long-term outcome, relies heavily on what stage your cancer is. Cancer stages are often further broken down into subcategories to provide more specific information.
Staging previously relied only on whether it is invasive or;noninvasive, the tumors size, which lymph nodes contained cancer, and where and how far the cancer had spread.
Breast cancer stages now also take into account the tumors grade and the cancers estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and HER2 status.
Estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and HER2 status all have to do with the specific hormones and/or proteins involved in your cancer. The tumor grade describes what the cancer cells look like.
Stage 3c Lung Cancer: Spread Throughout Chest
Stage 3C lung cancer has spread to all or part of the chest wall or its inner lining, the phrenic nerve, or the membranes of the sac that surrounds the heart.
Cancer has also reached stage 3C when two or more separate tumor nodules in the same lobe of a lung have spread to nearby lymph nodes. In stage 3C, the lung cancer has not spread to distant parts of the body.
Like stage 3A, stages 3B and 3C cancer may have spread to other chest structures. Part or all of the lung may become inflamed or collapse.
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Triple Negative Breast Cancer Clinical Trial
Ongoing clinical trial tried to investigate effectiveness and safety of different possible treatment for future use and also has several clinical trials in the pipeline. The patient can also enroll their name in these trials to get novel therapies and also assist in research by providing the data to the research team. The different research aim is different, some are investigating new therapies to treat the patient, whereas some drugs may use in preventive therapy. Name registration for a clinical trial is the first step to enrolling name to the research3,4.
References
Outlook For People With Stage 3 Breast Cancer
Its natural to want to know your outlook, but statistics dont tell the whole story. Your breast cancer type, overall health, and many more factors beyond your control may affect treatment outcomes.
Establishing open communication with your treatment team can help you best assess where you are in your cancer journey.
Support groups can be a great source of comfort as you navigate your diagnosis through your treatment and beyond. Your doctors office or hospital can offer some suggestions and resources in your area.
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How Can Hormones Affect The Growth Of Breast Cancer
Hormones like estrogen and progesterone are chemicals produced by glands in the body. Normally, these hormones help regulate body cycles, like menstruation. However, sometimes these same hormones can cause cancer to grow.
The pathologist will perform tests on the breast cancer cells to determine if they have receptors that feed on estrogen or progesterone, stimulating their growth. If the cancer cells have these receptors, your doctor may recommend hormone therapy drugs, such as blockers or inhibitors. Both types of drugs help to destroy cancer cells by cutting off their supply of hormones.
Your Cancer Stage Can Help Identify Clinical Trials That May Be Right For You
There are eligibility criteria to meet before patients can join a clinical trial. That criteria often includes a particular cancer stage. Staging gives researchers a way to bring together many patients across many treatment centers in order to make reasonable conclusions based on the results of the study.
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Stage 3 Diagnostic Criteria
While we talk about stage 3 cancers as one monstrous thing, their diagnosis differs drastically based on cancer type. Generally, a stage 3 cancer diagnosis requires one or more of three features:
- Tumor growth beyond a specific size
- Spread to a specific set of nearby lymph nodes
- Extension of the tumor into nearby structures
Once diagnosed, a cancer stage never changes. Even if the doctor re-stages the cancer diagnosis, or it recurs , they keep the initial staging diagnosis.
The doctor will add the new staging diagnosis to the initial stage and differentiate it with letterslike c for clinical, p for pathological , or after treatments .
Some stage 3 cancers are subdivided to give a more precise classification. These sub-stages will differ based on the specific cancerous organ. For example, stage 3 breast cancer has three subcategories:
- The tumor is smaller than 5 centimeters but has spread to 4-9 nodes.;
- The tumor is larger than 5 cm and has spread to 1 to 9 nodes.
3B: The tumor is any size but has invaded the chest wall or breast skin and is swollen, inflamed, or has ulcers. It may have also invaded up to 9 nearby nodes
3C: The tumor can be any size but has spread to either: 10 or more lymph nodes, nodes near the collar bones, or lymph nodes near the underarm and the breast bone
What Should A Person With Stage 3 Breast Cancer Expect From Treatment
Stage 3 treatment options vary widely and may consist of;mastectomy;and;radiation;for local treatment and;hormone therapy;or;chemotherapy;for systemic treatment. Nearly every person with a Stage 3 diagnosis will do best with a combination of two or more treatments.;
Chemotherapy is always given first with the goal to shrink the breast cancer to be smaller within the breast and within the lymph nodes that are affected. This is known as neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
Other possible treatments include biologic targeted therapy and immunotherapy. There may be various clinical trial options for interested patients with Stage 3 breast cancer.
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Treatment For Stage 4 Breast Cancer
Typically, treatment for stage 4 breast cancer includes a combination of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and hormone therapy .
Targeted therapy is a treatment that targets the protein that allows cancer cells to grow and this type of therapy may also be an option for people with stage 4 breast cancer.
Sometimes, surgeons will operate to try and remove tumors though this is not usually the first option for treatment.
Doctors, however, may recommend surgery to help with pain relief by treating some of the issues that may develop as a result of having stage 4 breast cancer. These include spinal cord compression, removing single masses caused by metastasis, and fixing any broken bones.
A doctor may also prescribe medication to treat related symptoms such as:
- antidepressants to help mood
- anticonvulsants to manage pain or neurologic conditions
- local anesthetics to manage pain
New treatments and therapies are emerging all the time, and anyone who has breast cancer at any stage can volunteer to try out these new treatments. People considering this should talk to their doctor to see whether any trials are available in their area.
Trials for a new treatment called immunotherapy are currently taking place. Immunotherapy works by raising the bodys natural ability to fight off cancer and has fewer side effects than chemotherapy.
As well as numbers, a zero or an X often follow the letters T, N, and M. According to the AJCC, the meanings are as follows:
These include:
Staging And Grading Of Breast Cancer
Knowing the stage and grade of the cancer helps your doctors plan the best treatment for you.
On this page
Your specialist doctor needs certain information about the cancer to advise you on the best treatment for you. This includes:
- the stage of the cancer
- the grade of the cancer
- whether the cancer has;receptors; for hormones or a protein called HER2.
This information comes from the results of all the tests you have had, including:
- the biopsy, when the tissue was examined
- other tests that were done on the cells.
Your specialist doctor and nurse will talk to you about this. They will explain how it helps you and your doctor decide on your treatment plan.
We understand that waiting to know the stage and grade of your cancer can be a worrying time. We’re here if you need someone to talk to. You can:
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What Is Triple Negative Breast Cancer
In This Article
Triple-negative breast cancer is a sub-group of breast cancer. The name of the condition denotes a characteristic feature of the diagnosis. Three important breast cancer features, which are common in other subtypes of breast cancer is absent in Triple Negative Breast Cancer.
Estrogen, progesterone, and the HER-2/neu gene are the three primary receptors stimulate the growth of the breast cancer. When clinical investigative result showed all these three related tests are negative in the breast cancer tumor progressive report then the condition is termed as Triple-negative breast cancer.
The clinical importance of categorizing Triple negative breast cancer in a special type due to all usual therapies for breast cancer like hormonal therapy;and/ or medicines act on the target receptors are unsuccessful in treating Triple-negative breast cancer. The treatment option for Triple negative breast cancer is chemotherapy and incorporation of the treatment at an early stage provides good prognosis1,5.
Stage 3 Lung Cancer: Prognosis Life Expectancy Treatment And More
Diagnosis often occurs at stage 3
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. It takes more lives than breast, prostate, and colon cancer combined, according to the
40 percent of people diagnosed with lung cancer, the disease has reached an advanced state at the time of diagnosis. One-third of those have reached stage 3.
According to the American Cancer Society, about 80 to 85 percent of lung cancers are non-small cell lung cancer . About 10 to 15 percent are small cell lung cancer . These two types of lung cancer are treated differently.
While survival rates vary, stage 3 lung cancer is treatable. Many factors affect an individuals outlook, including the stage of the cancer, treatment plan, and overall health.
Read more to learn about the symptoms, treatments, and outlook for stage 3 non-small cell lung cancer. This is the most common type of the disease.
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How A Breast Cancers Stage Is Determined
Your pathology report will include information that is used to calculate the stage of the breast cancer that is, whether it is limited to one area in the breast, or it has spread to healthy tissues inside the breast or to other parts of the body. Your doctor will begin to determine this during surgery to remove the cancer and look at one or more of the underarm lymph nodes, which is where breast cancer tends to travel first. He or she also may order additional blood tests or imaging tests if there is reason to believe the cancer might have spread beyond the breast.
The breast cancer staging system, called the TNM system, is overseen by the American Joint Committee on Cancer . The AJCC is a group of cancer experts who oversee how cancer is classified and communicated. This is to ensure that all doctors and treatment facilities are describing cancer in a uniform way so that the treatment results of all people can be compared and understood.
In the past, stage number was calculated based on just three clinical characteristics, T, N, and M:
- the size of the cancer tumor and whether or not it has grown into nearby tissue
- whether cancer is in the lymph nodes
- whether the cancer has spread to other parts of the body beyond the breast
Numbers or letters after T, N, and M give more details about each characteristic. Higher numbers mean the cancer is more advanced. Jump to more detailed information about the TNM system.
Jump to a specific breast cancer stage to learn more:
What Is Stage Iii
“In this stage, I tell my patients the real war against the cancer begins,” Cruz said. “Spreading is much more advanced.”
According to Cruz, stage III is unique in that it has three subcategories:;IIIA, IIIB and IIIC.;
IIIA has tumors all larger than five millimeters and has spread to lymph nodes.;Cruz said the higher number of lymph nodes with cancer cells, the more advanced it is.;
In stage IIIB, the tumor has spread to the chest wall and skin of the breast. In many cases, this spreading can result in swelling or ulcers. The cancer cells have also spread to nine lymph nodes.;
There is advanced spreading in stage IIIC:;the cancer has spread to the chest wall, skin of the breast, 10 or more lymph nodes and the collarbone.;
“In stage III, yes there is advanced spreading. Yes it is harder to treat, but not untreatable,” Cruz said.;”That’s what we tell our patients, although the spreading is scary, we can still fight it.”
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What Is Stage 4 Breast Cancer
Also known as metastatic breast cancer, the cancer in this stage has spread beyond the breast, underarm and internal mammary lymph nodes to other parts of the body near to or distant from the breast. The cancer has spread elsewhere in the body. The affected areas may include the bones, brain, lungs or liver and more than one part of the body may be involved.
At stage 4, TNM designations help describe the extent of the disease. Higher numbers indicate more extensive disease. Most commonly, stage 4 breast cancer is described as:,
- T: T1, T2, T3 or T4 depends on the size and/or extent of the primary tumor.
- N1: Cancer has spread to the lymph nodes.
- M1: The disease has spread to other sites in the body.
Starting With Neoadjuvant Therapy
Most often, these cancers are treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy . For HER2-positive tumors, the targeted drug trastuzumab is given as well, sometimes along with pertuzumab . This may shrink the tumor enough for a woman to have breast-conserving surgery . If the tumor doesnt shrink enough, a mastectomy is done. Nearby lymph nodes will also need to be checked. A sentinel lymph node biopsy is often not an option for stage III cancers, so an axillary lymph node dissection is usually done.
Often, radiation therapy is needed after surgery. If breast reconstruction is done, it is usually delayed until after radiation is complete. In some cases, additional chemo is given after surgery as well.
After surgery, some women with HER2-positive cancers will be treated with trastuzumab for up to a year. Many women with HER2-positive cancers will be treated first with trastuzumab followed by surgery and then more trastuzumab for up to a year. If after neoadjuvant therapy, any residual cancer is found at the time of surgery, trastuzumab may be changed to a different drug, called ado-trastuzumab emtansine, which is given every 3 weeks for 14 doses. For people with hormone receptor-positive cancer in the lymph nodes who have completed a year of trastuzumab, the doctor might also recommend additional treatment with an oral drug called neratinib for a year.
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