Does anyone know where i can read more about how they grade your cancer and determine what treatment you have.
Also is it definately true if you have a grade 3 and alot of lymph nodes involved Your prognosis is poorer than a grade 2 with no or few lymph nodes involved.
when i went to a Living with BC course a Bc nurse who spoke said she knew of many women who were grade 3 lots of lymph nodes involved and fine many years on and some women who were grade 1 and no nodes involved DX with secondaries after a year. This confused me.
I think the problem with statistics is that they give information relating to the particular group they are studying at a particular time but they are not looking at you and your cancer as an individual. I understand that there are many different types of breast cancer eg HER2+++, ER+ and -, etc and different types of treatment and I’m not sure if the studies take all of this into account. Also the date of the research must affect the results as I believe survival has improved since the newer drugs came in in the last 5 years.
I kept looking at the statistics when I was diagnosed with Grade 3 HER2+++, primary and secondary tumours in 2002 and ofcourse frightened myself by what I found. Like you, I am someone who likes to keep control of my life and determine what happens. After counselling ( which was great ), I eventually came to think that what will be will be cancerwise and I was just torturing myself unnecessarily. And as it has turned out, I am still reasonably well 5 years later despite being given a poor prognosis and not being eligible for herceptin as I was beyond the qualifying period wrt chemo.
Not sure how long you have been diagnosed and where you up to with treatment but certainly on my part, time and counselling have been great healers.
i too would be confused after nurse saying that…my understanding was the higher the grade the more aggressive the tumour and if nodes involved sign of possibility the cancer may of entered the body through lymphatic system…but please don’t quote me on this.
After all we all know how unpredictable this disease can be.
perhaps your BCN could give you a better understanding of this.
Cancer is unpredictable. In general terms grade 3 tumours have a poorer prognosis than grade 1 tumours BUT sometimes this is not the case…and no one is quite sure why. I expect the nurse was just trying to explain this to give people with grade 3 tumours some hope, while cautioning that a grade 1 cancer is still cancer and can go wild.
Yes some kinds of breast cancer are far more likely to recur than others…but nothing is certain. Also a cancer may recurr much quicker than expected or much more slowly. If cancer does come back Ruth, all is not necessarily ‘lost’…some people live a long long time with mets and some don’t…and again its not always possible to know who will be lucky, who less lucky.
Its hard not to torture ourselves about the future…know I do…have always known my cancer would probably come back and it has but not quite as I expected and after a longer period than I expected…and hey I’m still here and enjoying what I can (despite on chemo right now and not at all feeling my best). Like Wendy I’ve found counselling and time both help…and a sunny day like today.
I’ve decided it is a lottery. I am not going to spend hours agonising anymore on my chances, I am just going to fulfil my wish list and more and go for it.
I think we have to be very careful when looking at statistics. They are very useful for, say, the NHS in planning cancer services, as if say a certain cancer has an 85% survival rate, and there are 1,000 people with that cancer, the planners can assume that roughly 150 will die and 850 will live. However, from an individual’s point of view, you cannot 85% survive - you are either in the group of 150 or in the group of 850, and you have no way of knowing which. There is just more liklihood that you are in the group of 850. This explains why you could have a poor prognosis but be in the ones that survive, or have a good prognosis but be in the ones who die. We all have to live our lives in the belief that we will be in the group that survives, whatever our prognosis.
I think that’s very true - the first time round (I’ve just had a mastectomy last week for my second primary cancer in the same breast) the oncologist said that whatever happens to you, will happen 100% - so not to get too involved with the % survival rate statistics. Also please remember that those statistics were compiled from treatment several years ago, so current treatments have moved on. My first experience was sixteen years ago - my goodness, what a difference in the treatment options and help available. My first tumour was given a survival rate of around 80% at five years - now it would be up over 90%. I know, much easier said than done to tell you not to worry away at the statistics - but try your hardest not to compare yourself with people you meet with the “same” diagnosis, and take any offers of counselling or talking (or just fun things to do) that are going.
No you can’t be 85% alive…or 30% dead…or can you? I reckon if you know your cancer is incurable or you are at end stage then maybe it amounts to something similar. And those 5 years survival stats drive me bolistic. I’m hoping and expecting to make my 5 years come October 2008…but will I make 6 or 7 or 10…?.I will take money bets now! (Ladbrokes wouldn’t take a bet!)
Yes statistics can never tell us about individuals but I reckon that an healthy understanding of statistics can be an important piece of knowledge for living well and as happily as possible with cancer. I know not everyone agrees though.
grading of cancers is not an exact science as they look at the cells under the microscope and look at a sample of them, not the whole tumour. So who knows? Also they can’t detect what is happening at a sub microscopic level. It’s all about probabilities but the probability it is going to rain tomorrow if it rained today is a high one, but it isn’t certain. The only things in life which are certain are death and taxation as my mother told me a while back
Agree with Mole about grading being an inexact science. The biopsy of my lump showed a grade 1, so I felt quite sanguine about the whole lumpectomy thing.
After it was whipped out, hey presto it was suddenly a grade 3. Which news was delivered casually by the breast care nurse in the middle of crowded waiting room, together with the message that I’d have to do chemo now. I have never trusted her or the hospital totally since. I had another experience ten years ago with one pathologist saying some cells showed precancerous changes and another one totally contradicting this, so nowadays feel pathology may be more of an art than a science…