My friend was told she has stage 2 breast cancer and it has spread to her lymph nodes. She just had a mastectomy. What is her chances of survival? What does the different breast cancer stages mean? IIA IIB IIIA IIIB
Cancer - 6 Answers
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1 :
Stage II is broken into four 5-year survivability segments. IIA 92% Survive IIB 81% Survive IIIA 67% Survive IIIB 54% Survive
2 :
My mom was 73 when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer. She lived to be 76 and five days. Her cancer had been wiped out in January 2006 but it came back in June as stage 4. She lived until October, sadly she had gone through two seperate mastectomies in those few years and lots of chemo to no avail.
3 :
My aunt had the same type of breast cancer, had a double mastectomy and it spread to her lymph nodes as well. She was diagnosed in 1996. She is still alive and cancer free today. She went through hell with chemotherapy, but she made it. If your friend was diagnosed with stage IV, it might raise quite a few more issues in chances of survival. But even with that being said, there is no sure way of knowing because miracles do happen.
4 :
There are so many different factors to consider with breast cancer and survivability. The good news is that more and more women are surviving this horrible disease. I am one of them. I was diagnosed with stage 3C three years ago. The best advice I can give about surviving is to have her surround herself with positive people, and keep a positive attitude. May she have faith during this difficult time. I would suggest she join a support group like Gildas Club.
5 :
Actually the stages involve how big the area is and if it has spread or not. Stage II - the tumor is between 2-5 cm. and it has spread to the lymph nodes on the affected side. Stage IIIA - the tumor is greater than 5 cm. and there is significant lymph node involvement. Stage IIIB - a tumor of any size that has grown to the outer skin, chest wall or ribs. Your friend's chances of survival depend on the stage of breast cancer she has, her general health, her age and family history. The source below should help. Good luck.
6 :
Treatment A diagnosis of breast cancer is one of the most difficult experiences you can face. In addition to coping with a potentially life-threatening illness, you must make complex decisions about treatment. Talk with your health care team to learn as much as you can about your treatment options. Consider a second opinion from a breast specialist in a breast center or clinic. Talking to other women who have faced the same decision also may help. Treatments exist for every type and stage of breast cancer. Most women will have surgery and an additional (adjuvant) therapy such as radiation, chemotherapy or hormone therapy. Experimental treatments are also available at cancer treatment centers. Surgery Today, radical mastectomy is rarely performed. Instead, the majority of women are candidates for simple mastectomy or lumpectomy. If you decide on mastectomy, you may opt for breast reconstruction. Breast cancer operations include the following: Lumpectomy. This operation saves as much of your breast as possible by removing only the lump plus a surrounding area of normal tissue. Many women can have lumpectomy — often followed by radiation therapy — instead of mastectomy, and in most cases survival rates for both operations are similar. But lumpectomy may not be an option if a tumor is very large, deep within your breast, or if you have already had radiation therapy, have two or more widely separated areas of cancer in the same breast, have a connective tissue disease that makes you sensitive to radiation, or if you have inflammatory breast cancer. If you have a large tumor but still want to consider the possibility of lumpectomy, chemotherapy before surgery may be an option to shrink the tumor and make you eligible for the procedure. In general, lumpectomy is almost always followed by radiation therapy to destroy any remaining cancer cells. But when very small, noninvasive cancers are involved, some studies question the role and benefits of radiation therapy — especially for older women. These studies haven't shown that lumpectomy plus radiation prolongs a woman's life any better than does lumpectomy alone. Partial or segmental mastectomy. Another breast-sparing operation, partial mastectomy involves removing the tumor as well as some of the breast tissue around the tumor and the lining of the chest muscles that lie beneath it. In almost all cases, you'll have a course of radiation therapy following your operation, similar to if you had a lumpectomy. Simple mastectomy. During a simple mastectomy, your surgeon removes all your breast tissue — the lobules, ducts, fatty tissue and skin, including the nipple and areola. Depending on the results of the operation and follow-up tests, you may also need further treatment with radiation to the chest wall, chemotherapy or hormone therapy. Modified radical mastectomy. In this procedure, a surgeon removes your entire breast, including the overlying skin, and some underarm lymph nodes (axillary lymph node dissection), but leaves your chest muscles intact. This makes breast reconstruction less complicated. Sentinel lymph node biopsy Because breast cancer first spreads to the lymph nodes under the arm, all women with invasive cancer need to have these nodes examined. Rather than remove as many lymph nodes as possible, surgeons now focus on finding the sentinel nodes — the first nodes to receive the drainage from breast tumors and therefore the first place cancer cells will travel. If a sentinel node is removed, examined and found to be normal, the chance of finding cancer in any of the remaining nodes is small and no other nodes need to be removed. This spares many women the need for a more extensive operation and greatly decreases the risk of complications. Your stage of breast cancer refers to how extensive your breast cancer is. This includes both the size of the tumor and whether or not any cancer cells have spread from the breast to other areas of your body, including your lymph nodes. Your doctor will determine your stage of breast cancer at the time he or she removes your cancer during a mastectomy or lumpectomy and through close examination of the lymph nodes under your arm. Your stage of breast cancer can be as low as stage 0 or as high as stage IV. The higher the stage, the larger the tumor or the more the cancer has spread. Stage 0 cancer, for instance, indicates a non-invasive breast cancer that is contained within the duct and hasn't spread within the breast. Some doctors consider stage 0 cancer not a true cancer at all but a predictor of breast cancer
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