Pathology

Cancer:

My cancer is invasive, Stage 1 and Grade 3. This means that it started to break through normal breast tissue barriers and invade surrounding areas, Stage 1 means the tumor was small (1.6 cm) which usually means a better outcome, but Grade 3 is the highest grade of cancer which suggests a faster growing cancer that's more likely to spread. My cancer is also HER2-positive. This type of cancer tends to grow faster and is more likely to recur than HER2-negative cancer. The cancer is ER and PR Positive, which means the cancer is receptive to hormone-blocking medications to slow its growth.

Treatment:

The current plan is a 3 prong approach consisting of chemothepy (four, three-week cycles); Immunotherapy (Herceptin) for the HER2-Positive (administered weekly intravenously for 1 year) and a yet to be determined hormone-blocker for a long period of time - up to 5 years or more.

By taking this combination of drugs, I will reduce my risk of relapse (relapse is defined as new breast cancer (30%) or spread (70%)) from 32% to 5% and the risk of not surviving from 13% to 3%.