thats all that went in does anyone know what these figures mean ,sorry for being so dense ,going to get a core biopsy next week ,then depending on results a lumpectomy and lymph node removal ,
Hi mad4cavs, Don't apologize for being dense its such a shock to the system most of us on here have all sorts of questions when cancer loams. I'm the sort of person who went into overdrive wanting to know the ifs, buts and maybes. Such an emotional roll-a-coaster. This is normal, its such a steep learning curve. I'm not a medical person but I believe ER positvie means your cancer is estrogen receptor positive. Grade is normally how aggressive/developed/type the cancer cells appear under microscope. Stage is how far it has spread. Do you have a named nurse you can direct these questions to? Our local acute hosp Breast nurses operated a Mon - Fri 9-5 answering machine message system - returning calls the same day. It will be very difficult to know what the ifs are untill your biopsy results are known - being in no mans land is very difficult to deal with - things will be easier when you know.
Cancers are graded according to how different they are to normal breast cells and how quickly they are growing. There are three grades in breast cancer and you can read about them here.
The female hormone oestrogen can play a part in stimulating some breast cancers to grow. Some breast cancers have receptors within the cell that bind to oestrogen. This is known as oestrogen receptor positive or ER+ breast cancer and in this situation women would be prescribed hormone treatment. As your cancer is hormone receptor negative ( ER-), hormone therapy will not be of any benefit to you.
The organisation Breast Cancer Care has a useful booklet called ‘Understanding your pathology report’ which explains your questions in more detail. You can download this here.
