BREAST CANCER - PATHOLOGY REPORT

Understanding Your Pathology Report: 

Breast Cancer 

When your breast was biopsied, the samples taken were studied under the microscope by a specialized doctor with many years of training called a pathologist. The pathologist sends your doctor a report that gives a diagnosis for each sample taken. Information in this report will be used to help manage your care. The questions and answers that follow are meant to help you understand medical language you might find in the pathology report from a biopsy, such as a needle biopsy or an excision biopsy. 

In a needle biopsy, a needle is used to remove a sample of an abnormal area. An excision biopsy removes the entire abnormal area, often with some of the surrounding normal tissue. An excision biopsy is much like a type of breast conserving surgery called a lumpectomy. 

What is carcinoma or adenocarcinoma?

Carcinoma is a term used to describe a cancer that begins in the lining layer (epithelial cells) of organs like the breast. Nearly all breast cancers are carcinomas. Most are the type of carcinoma that starts in glandular tissue called adenocarcinoma. 

What is infiltrating or invasive?

These words are used to mean that the cancer is not a pre-cancer (or in-situ), but is a true cancer. 

The normal breast is made of ducts that end in a group of blind-ending sacs (lobules). Cancer starts in the cells lining the ducts and lobules, when a normal cell becomes a carcinoma cell. As long as the carcinoma cells are still confined to the breast ducts or lobules, without breaking out and growing into surrounding tissue, it is considered in-situ carcinoma. Once the carcinoma cells have grown and broken out of the ducts or lobules, it is called invasive or infiltrating carcinoma. In an invasive carcinoma, the tumor cells can spread (metastasize) to other parts of your body.                                                                                   excerpt from the American Cancer Society website