for Jean, Robin P and all those who started with DCIS with microinvasion (recognized

TSund · 07-10-2007, 09:38 PM

Ah, that makes much more sense.

You know, with all of the trauma over Ruth's multi-focal invasive cancer, it never even occurred to me that since biopsy also showed DCIS then I should be paying attention to the DCIS comments also!

Arrrgh...there is just so much to digest it becomes overwhelming.

Do I remember correctly that someone said DCIS does not shrink from the chemo? Does that mean that Ruth will still have DCIS cancer even if her tumors end up responding to the chemo quite well?

TRS

Hopeful · 07-11-2007, 06:31 AM

Terri,

I don't know your wife's pathology, but my tumor was combined DCIS/IDC, so I have done some research on it. Here is a link to a paper that found that the presenced of DCIS confers an improved prognosis for patients with T1N0MO invasive breast carcinoma: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?scri...lng=pt&nrm=iso

I know you haven't been a member here for that long, so here is a link to a thread from the Articles Forum from last year where the topic of IDC/DCIS was discussed: http://her2support.org/vbulletin/sho...eferrerid=1173 There is some good information there, too.

Hopeful

TSund · 07-11-2007, 09:42 AM

Hopeful,

THis was very informative and very helpful!!

Ruth's cancer was multi-focal and total area was large unfortunately. I do not know the % of DCIS vs. IDC. I do not know if there is a way to tell this pre-surgery. I think they only needle biopsied the largest tumor (about 2 cm) However, this is interesting info as all docs (2 oncs, 2 surgeons, 1 GP, 1 nurse practioner) were so sure there would be node involvement, and yet there has been no substantive proof of that; no papable nodes much to their surprise I think. Scans all negative. Of course that does not rule out microscopic invasion. I wonder if this element contributes to this fact.

We are fighting the odds given the extent of Ruth's disease, but there have been other good markers, no lymphatic invasion seen, hormonal ER+/PR+ positive, etc. And the pre-adjuvant TCH chemo has been making an apparant immediate affect, which I was surprised at given the fact that she is so strongly hormonally positive. 100%+/95%+

I pray that this chemo is getting at cells that have floated elsewhere. Who knows.

Terri