Stage
II Breast Cancer
What is stage
II breast cancer and what is the prognosis for someone with this diagnosis?
Stage I is
a small cluster of cells that are confined to where they started growing
- usually in the ducts of the breast.
Stage II
is a little more advanced. It means that the tumor is slightly larger
and may have started to send cancer cells out to scout for more place
to grow. If so, the wandering cancer cells have made it as far as the
lymph nodes and have been trapped there and prevented from setting up
housekeeping in another organ. There are no distant metastases in Stage
II breast cancer.
Stage II
breast cancer is divided into Stage IIA and IIB.
In Stage
IIA breast cancer:
- The cancer
is no larger than 2 centimeters in size but has spread to the lymph
nodes under the arm or
- The cancer
is between 2 and 5 centimeters in size but has not spread to the lymph
nodes under the arm.
In Stage
IIB breast cancer:
- The cancer
is between 2 and 5 centimeters in size and has spread to the lymph nodes
under the arm or
- The cancer
is larger than 5 centimeters but has not spread to the lymph nodes under
the arm.
With lymph
involvement the standard treatment is to do surgery, either a mastectomy
or a lumpectomy, followed by radiation and chemotherapy. The radiation
is to make sure that all of the local cancer cells are taken care of.
The chemotherapy is insurance that if any made it through the lymph barrier
they will be cleaned up by the chemo which goes through your whole body.
Your treatment
will be determined by you and your team of doctors. There are so many
variations in the types of breast cancer that no one treatment will work
for all of them. Many doctors will suggest doing chemotherapy before the
surgery, this does not mean anything other than that your doctor thinks
that with your cancer it would be better to try to shrink the tumor and
kill the cells before removing the lump.
Stage II
breast cancer has less than 50% chance of recurrence, the smaller the
tumor, the lower the chances of it coming back. With no nodes involved
and a small tumor the rate of recurrence over 20 years is 33%. If the
tumor is larger or the cells have begun to move away from the primary
tumor, the percentages are closer to 44%.
No one knows
which tumors in which people are more likely to come back - that is why
chemotherapy is suggested for everyone. There may be a chance that you
don't need it - that every single cell has been removed by the surgery,
but your doctor will not want to take the chance of increasing the likelihood
of a recurrence by skipping chemo.
The latest
figures for 5 year survival rates with stage II breast cancer are
Remember
when you look at these numbers, the drugs being used to treat breast cancer
have improved dramatically in the last ten years. These percentages do
not necessarily apply to you others currently being diagnosed. Many survivors
of stage III and IV breast cancer make it well beyond the five year mark.
Never let statistics frighten you. Breast cancer is a disease that is
being researched and new tools to fight are found constantly. There was
a time when any breast cancer diagnosis was a death sentence. That time
is long gone. Even if there is a recurrence, life with breast cancer can
be both long and good.
also see -> Stage I Breast Cancer
July 7, 2000
Last
updated April 1, 2006
Elsewhere
on the Web:
Breast
Cancer Stages
Treatment
by Breast Cancer Stage
