What Stage Is Breast Cancer In Lymph Nodes

Staging And Grading Of Breast Cancer

Knowing the stage and grade of the cancer helps your doctors plan the best treatment for you.

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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:

Physical Exams And Pathology Exams

Sometimes, positive lymph nodes can be felt during a physical exam. However, a pathologists exam of the lymph nodes removed during a biopsy or surgery is needed to determine lymph node status.

During a physical exam, your health care provider will feel under your arm to check if the lymph nodes are enlarged. If the lymph nodes feel enlarged, its likely the breast cancer has spread. However, the cancer may have spread to the lymph nodes even if they dont feel enlarged.

The pathologist will check the nodes under a microscope. Nearly one-third of women with negative lymph nodes based on a physical exam have nodes with cancer found during the pathology exam . And, some women with enlarged nodes during a physical exam have cancer-free nodes .

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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Stage 1 Breast Cancer

Stage 1 breast cancer is divided into two groups:

• Stage 1A
• Stage 1B

Stage 1A means the cancer is 2cm or smaller and has not spread outside the breast.

Stage 1B can mean:

No cancer is seen in the breast, but a very tiny area of breast cancer is found in the lymph nodes under the arm

The cancer in the breast is 2cm or smaller and a very tiny area of breast cancer is found in the lymph nodes under the arm .

Living With Stage : The Breast Cancer No One Understands

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Editors note: Were bringing back this piece from October 2014 for Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day and to honor Jody Schoger, featured in the story. Schoger died of metastatic breast cancer in May. Want to learn more about MBC? Look for our tweets at the Northwest Metastatic Breast Cancer Conference this Saturday at Fred Hutch.

A no-nonsense Texan of 60 years, Jody Schoger* has a very no-nonsense way of educating people about her metastatic breast cancer.

âSomeone will say, âWhen are you done with treatment?â and Iâll tell them, âWhen Iâm dead,ââ said Schoger, a writer and cancer advocate who lives near Houston. âSo many people interpret survivorship as going across the board. That everybody survives cancer now. But everybody does not survive cancer.â

An estimated 155,000-plus women in the U.S. currently live with âmets,â or metastatic breast cancer. This type of cancer, also called stage 4 breast cancer, means the cancer has metastasized, or traveled, through the bloodstream to create tumors in the liver, lungs, brain, bones and/or other parts of the body. Between 20 and 30 percent of women with early stage breast cancer go on to develop metastatic disease. While treatable, metastatic breast cancer cannot be cured. The five-year survival rate for stage 4 breast cancer is 22 percent median survival is three years. Annually, the disease takes 40,000 lives.

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What Is Stage 3 Breast Cancer

Also known as locally advanced breast cancer, the tumor in this stage of breast cancer is more than 2 inches in diameter across and the cancer is extensive in the underarm lymph nodes or has spread to other lymph nodes or tissues near the breast. Stage 3 breast cancer is a more advanced form of invasive breast cancer. At this stage, the cancer cells have usually not spread to more distant sites in the body, but they are present in several axillary lymph nodes. The tumor may also be quite large at this stage, possibly extending to the chest wall or the skin of the breast.

Stage 3 breast cancer is divided into three categories:

Stage 3A: One of the following is true:

• No tumor is found in the breast, but cancer is present in axillary lymph nodes that are attached to either other or other structures, or cancer may be found in the lymph nodes near the breast bone, or
• The tumor is 2 cm or smaller. Cancer has spread to axillary lymph nodes that are attached to each other or other structures, or cancer may have spread to lymph nodes near the breastbone, or
• The tumor is 2 cm to 4 cm in size. Cancer has spread to axillary lymph nodes that are attached to each other or to other structures, or cancer may have spread to lymph nodes near the breast bone, or
• The tumor is larger than 5 cm. Cancer has spread to axillary lymph nodes that may be attached to each other or to other structures, or cancer may have spread to lymph nodes near the breastbone.

Stage 3C:

You Must Know How Breast Cancer Spread Faster

In the United States, Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosis among women these days.

It is complicated to estimate how a persons breast cancer will change over a year. Several types of breast cancer grow at different rates, and many parts affect its growth and spreading chances.

Here we discuss how breast cancer can spread faster, the common ways it can progress, and the long-term risk for the disease.

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Tnm System For Breast Cancer

Doctors also group cancers by the letters T, N, or M. Each of those letters tells you something about your cancer.

âTâ stands for tumor, or the lump of cancer found in the breast itself. The higher the number assigned after it, the bigger or wider the mass.

âNâ stands for nodes, as in lymph nodes. These small filters are found throughout the body, and they’re especially dense in and around the breast. They’re meant to catch cancer cells before they travel to other parts of the body. Here, too, a number tells you whether the cancer has spread to lymph nodes near the breast and, if so, how many.

âMâ stands for metastasis. The cancer has spread beyond the breast and lymph nodes.

How Breast Cancer Spreads And Recurs

• Treatment and Outlook

Breast cancer is frightening enough without the fear that it could travel to other parts of the body. Metastasis is the term for the spread of cancer. About 250,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer and roughly 40,000 will die from the disease each year. When breast cancer is diagnosed in the early stages, many women go on to live cancer-free lives.

Yet for others, the disease is metastatic at the time of diagnosis or later recurs. It’s thought that metastatic disease is responsible for around 66% of the deaths related to breast cancer. How does breast cancer spread or recur?

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The Number Staging System

Breast cancer can also be divided into four number stages. We have put these into a table to make them easier to understand. You can .

This information is about stage 1 to 3 breast cancer.

Stage 1 breast cancer is when the cancer is 2cm or smaller. There may be no cancer cells in the lymph nodes in the armpit or tiny numbers of cancer cells are found. Sometimes the cancer cannot be found in the breast, but cancer cells have spread to lymph nodes in the armpit.

Stage 2 breast cancer is when the cancer is up to or bigger than 5cm. It may or may not have spread to the lymph nodes under the arm. Sometimes the cancer cannot be found in the breast. But cancer cells have spread to 1 to 3 lymph nodes in the armpit or near the breast bone.

Stage 3 breast cancer is sometimes called locally advanced breast cancer. The cancer has spread to the lymph nodes in the armpit and sometimes to other lymph nodes nearby. It may have spread to the skin of the breast or to the chest muscle. The skin may be red, swollen or have broken down. Sometimes the cancer cannot be found in the breast or is small but has spread to 4 to 9 lymph nodes in the armpit.

Stage 4 breast cancer is also called secondary or metastatic breast cancer. This is when the cancer has spread to other parts of the body, such as the bones, the liver or lungs. We have separate information about secondary breast cancer.

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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What Is Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is cancer that starts in the breast tissues. Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers that affect women and is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women. Men can also develop breast cancer, however, less than 1% of breast cancers are diagnosed in men.

Cancers are a unique group of diseases caused by genetic mutations, which make certain types of cells turn abnormal and grow out of control. Most types of cancers grow into masses of tissue known as tumors. Cancer spreads when tumor cells break off from the primary tumor, migrate to other parts of the body and start growing.

Conventional Stages Of Breast Cancer Progression: 0 Through Iv

As mentioned, there are five basic stages of breast cancer with a couple of sub-categories.

Stage 0

This is a bit of an unclear term which specialists use to describe the development of abnormal cells that are not yet invasive breast cancer. Indeed physicians consider Ductal Carcinoma in situ, or DCIS, stage 0 breast cancer.

Here the malignant cancer cells are present in the lining of the breast d uct but have not yet invaded the surrounding breast tissue or spread beyond the duct. Almost 100% of DCIS is curable, but it obviously, does need treatment.

Early-stage breast cancer Stage 1

Stage 1 breast cancer is an early stage breast cancer. There is a considerable difference in medical opinion as to what exactly constitutes early stag e breast cancer. Also, how aggressive the treatment for Stage I breast cancer is another area of debate.

The standard definition of a stage 1 breast tumor is that a certain amount of breast cancer cells invade tissues and structures beyond the duct lining. However, no cancer cells have spread beyond the breast.

Furthermore, the tumor size is less than 2 cm in diameter. If physicians can detect and treat breast cancer before it grows beyond 2cm, the prognosis is very very good.

The average age of diagnosis of a stage 1 breast tumor is about 52 years old. In over 90% of cases, treatment tends to involve breast conservation surgery, followed by radiation therapy.

Chance of stage 1 cancer recurrence or spreading.

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The Tnm System For Staging Breast Cancer

The AJCCs addition of the letters T, N, and M for anatomic breast cancer staging adds more information to a breast cancer diagnosis. Heres what they mean:

• T : The tumor grade shows a higher number for a larger size or density.
• N : Nodes refers to lymph nodes and uses the numerals 0 to 3 to give information about how many lymph nodes are involved in the cancer.
• M : This refers to how the cancer has spread beyond the breast and lymph nodes.

The AJCC also added clarifications in staging for ER, PR, and HER2 expression and also genetic information.

Ultimately, this means someone diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer can receive more information from their breast cancer staging than ever before.

No matter the stage, the best source of information about your individual outlook is your own oncology team.

Make sure you understand your breast cancer stage and subtype so that you can better understand treatment options and individual outlook.

Getting the right treatment and the support you need can help you navigate the challenges of being diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer.

Examples Using The Full Staging System

Because there are so many factors that go into stage grouping for breast cancer, it’s not possible to describe here every combination that might be included in each stage. The many different possible combinations mean that two women who have the same stage of breast cancer might have different factors that make up their stage.

Here are 3 examples of how all of the factors listed above are used to determine the pathologic breast cancer stage:

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Where Does Breast Cancer Spread To

Breast cancer cells seem to prefer to settle into:-

• long bones in the arms and legs
• ribs
• skull

With an osteolytic metastasis, the cancer kind of eats away at the bone, creating holes.

With an osteoblastic bone metastasis, the bone mineral density actually increases, but this can cause the bones to fracture more easily. This requires a little more explanation. Breast cancer metastases tend to be lytic when they are untreated, and then they become densely sclerotic as they respond to treatment.

Even if no treatment is given yet, an osteoblastic metastasis from breast cancer generally indicates that the persons own body is trying to fight cancer with some success.

A CT scan may also be used to check for metastasis to the lungs or liver. A CT scan is essentially an X-ray linked to a computer. The breast cancer doctor injects a contrast dye agent into the bloodstream and this makes any cancer cells in the liver and chest easier to see.

About Secondary Cancer In The Lymph Nodes

Secondary cancer in the lymph nodes is when cancer cells have spread to the lymph nodes from a cancer that started somewhere else in the body.

Cancer that starts in one part of the body can spread to other parts of the body. It does this through the bloodstream or the lymphatic system.

Primary cancer of the lymph nodes is called lymphoma. This is when cancer starts in the lymph nodes. This information is not about cancer that starts in the lymph nodes.

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How Common Is Breast Cancer Recurrence

Most local recurrences of breast cancer occur within five years of a lumpectomy. You can lower your risk by getting radiation therapy afterward. You have a 3% to 15% chance of breast cancer recurrence within 10 years with this combined treatment. Based on genetic testing, your provider may recommend additional treatments to further reduce your risk.

Recurrence rates for people who have mastectomies vary:

• There is a 6% chance of cancer returning within five years if the healthcare providers didnt find cancer in axillary lymph nodes during the original surgery.
• There is a one in four chance of cancer recurrence if axillary lymph nodes are cancerous. This risk drops to 6% if you get radiation therapy after the mastectomy.

Diagnosing Secondary Cancer In The Lymph Nodes

Secondary cancer in the lymph nodes may be diagnosed at the same time as the primary cancer. It may also be found during routine tests and scans after treatment.

If a lymph node close to the surface of the skin is affected, your doctor may be able to see it or feel it. If an affected lymph node is deep inside the chest, tummy or pelvis, only a scan can find it.

If you have had cancer before, you may only need a scan to make a diagnosis of secondary cancer in the lymph nodes. This may be:

• A CT scan

  A CT scan takes a series of x-rays, which build up a 3D picture of the inside of the body.

• An MRI scan

  An MRI scan uses magnetism to build up a detailed picture of the inside of your body.

• An ultrasound scan

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What Is Stage Ii Breast Cancer

Stage II describes cancer that is in a limited region of the breast but has grown larger. It reflects how many lymph nodes may contain cancer cells. This stage is divided into two subcategories.

Stage IIA is based on one of the following:

• Either there is no tumor in the breast or there is a breast tumor up to 20 millimeters , plus cancer has spread to the lymph nodes under the arm.
• A tumor of 20 to 50 millimeters is present in the breast, but cancer has not spread to the lymph nodes.

Stage IIB is based on one of these criteria:

• A tumor of 20 to 50 millimeters is present in the breast, along with cancer that has spread to between one and three nearby lymph nodes.
• A tumor in the breast is larger than 50 millimeters, but cancer has not spread to any lymph nodes.