Pathology Update

The pathology is back on the original slides. The cells were Estrogen Receptor Positive, Progesterone Receptor Positive and Her-2/neu Negative.

Estrogen and Progesterone positive cancers can be treated with medicines that lower the estrogen in your body, as well as medicine that blocks estrogen from getting into the hormone receptors of the your body’s cells. This means that my cancer should stop growing or be prevented with hormone suppression treatment, such as tamoxifen. I have not talked to the oncologist yet but my surgeon thinks I will need that medication for at least five years.


The HER2 is a gene that sends control signals to your cells, telling them to grow, divide, and make repairs. A healthy breast cell has 2 copies of the HER2 gene. Some kinds of breast cancer get started when a breast cell has more than 2 copies of that gene, and those copies start over-producing the HER2 protein. As a result, the affected cells grow and divide much too quickly. This is not a factor in my case as the Her2 cells are normal.

Today another biopsy will be done on both sides under MRI at 1pm. I should have results by Monday will let us know if I need a mastectomy.