SOMEONE WHO COULD INTERPRET A BIOPSY RESULT (CANCER)?
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SOMEONE WHO COULD INTERPRET A BIOPSY RESULT (CANCER)?
GOOD DAY! My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer November of 2011 when she had a minor surgery removing an axillary mass located at her left breast, near the armpit. the first diagnosis was thyroid cancer but when double-checked, it turned out to be cancer of the breast. Another mass was found at her other breast and it was diagnosed to be malignant. She was scheduled to have an operation removing her breasts December of last year but then decided not to proceed with the surgery and changed her doctor instead. 2 weeks ago, a slide and specimen from the axillary mass that was removed last year was reviewed again to check where did the mass really came from. We already have the results but her oncologist is not around to interpret what is written there. I was just wondering if anybody here could help interpret the results of the review. please be the ANGEL who could help me understand what is written there. i badly need it. please help.
the findings are:
ESTROGEN RECEPTOR ASSAY:
Positive for Estrogen receptors in 90% of tumor cells with intensity of +1.
Allred score: 6
Interpretation: Positive.
PROGESTERONE RECEPTOR ASSAY
Positive for Progesterone receptors in 20% of tumor cells with intensity of +2.
Allred score: 5
Interpretation: Positive.
HER-2-NEU ASSAY:
Negative.
please, somebody help me.
The result is saying what they've found in the tumor cells. I.e They've found estrogen receptors on 90% of tumor cells. This means that those tumors are using estrogen to grow.
HER-2-NEU ASSAY:
Negative.
^ This can mean that the tumor is not aggressive, and that it's still in it's early stage
Find another oncologist.
The quoted part of the biopsy report tells you the "receptor status":
Estrogen - Positive
Progesterone - Negative
HER2 - Negative.
This is helpful in establishing which treatment will be most helpful in your mothers case.
In general it is a bad idea to forgo surgery (with a curative intention) for breast cancer. A few studies have been done to see what happens to patients who chose alternative therapy instead of conventional treatment. These studies show that the risk of progression/death significantly increases - most notably in those who refuse surgery, but also in those who refuse additional radio-chemotherapy.
You can read the summaries of those studies here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16978951
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21225354
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