What does Stage 3A breast cancer mean? Stage 3A. Stage 3A means one of the following: no tumour is seen in the breast or the tumour may be any size and cancer is found in 4 to 9 lymph glands under the arm or in the lymph glands near the breastbone.

Is Stage 3 breast cancer metastatic? Stage 3 breast cancer is considered to be advanced breast cancer, however, it is not metastatic. This means that cancer has not spread from the breast to other organs or distant sites in the body.

What is the survival rate for grade 3 breast cancer? Life expectancy and survival rates for stage 3 breast cancer are improving all the time. The current 5-year survival rates for stage 3 breast cancer are 86% for females and 83% for males. However, many factors can influence a person’s life expectancy after a breast cancer diagnosis.

Is Stage 3A breast cancer curable? Because stage 3 breast cancer has spread outside the breast, it can be harder to treat than earlier stage breast cancer, though that depends on a few factors. With aggressive treatment, stage 3 breast cancer is curable; however, the risk that the cancer will grow back after treatment is high.

What does Stage 3A breast cancer mean? – Additional Questions

Is Stage 3 breast cancer a death sentence?

A cancer diagnosis is a life-changing event. This is especially true if you’re diagnosed with later-stage cancer. But stage 3 cancer isn’t a death sentence. Survival rates are improving, and researchers are continually discovering and testing new targeted drugs and immunotherapies.

Is grade 3 breast cancer serious?

The grade is used to help predict your outcome (prognosis) and to help figure out what treatments might work best. A low grade number (grade 1) usually means the cancer is slower-growing and less likely to spread. A high grade number (grade 3) means a faster-growing cancer that’s more likely to spread.

What is the life expectancy of Stage 3 cancer?

According to the American Cancer Society data derived from a database of people diagnosed with lung cancer between 1999 and 2010, the five-year survival rate for stage 3A NSCLC is about 36 percent. For stage 3B cancers the survival rate is about 26 percent. For stage 3C cancers the survival rate is about 1 percent.

How long is treatment for stage 3 breast cancer?

Hormonal therapy for post-menopausal women

women with stage 3 breast cancer includes tamoxifen (an anti-estrogen) and aromatase inhibitors. You may be offered one of the following options: tamoxifen (Nolvadex, Tamofen) alone for up to 10 years. an aromatase inhibitor alone for up to 10 years.

What is the best treatment for stage 3 breast cancer?

Chemotherapyis a common treatment for stage III breast cancer. Sometimes people have chemo before surgery to shrink a tumor and make it easier to remove. It can help destroy cancer cells that remain after surgery. In cases where surgery isn’t an option, chemotherapy may be the main treatment.

What type breast cancer has the highest recurrence rate?

Research suggests that estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer is more likely to come back more than five years after diagnosis. In this study, the researchers looked at the risk of late breast cancer recurrence, meaning the breast cancer came back 10 or more years after diagnosis.

When are you considered cancer free after breast cancer?

The cancer may come back to the same place as the original primary tumor or to another place in the body. If you remain in complete remission for five years or more, some doctors may say that you are cured, or cancer-free.

What causes breast cancer to return?

Risk factors

For breast cancer survivors, factors that increase the risk of a recurrence include: Lymph node involvement. Finding cancer in nearby lymph nodes at the time of your original diagnosis increases your risk of the cancer coming back. Larger tumor size.

Which type of breast cancer has the best prognosis?

Grade 1 has the best prognosis. Some breast cancers need your body’s natural hormones estrogen (ER) and progesterone (PR) to grow. These cancer cells have proteins on the outside of their walls called hormone receptors.

What is the hardest breast cancer to treat?

What is triple-negative breast cancer? Triple-negative breast cancer is that which tests negative for three receptors: estrogen, progesterone, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). It is also the least common form of breast cancer and the hardest to treat.

What is the difference between grade 3 and Stage 3 cancer?

While a grade describes the appearance of cancer cells and tissue, a cancer’s stage explains how large the primary tumor is and how far the cancer has spread in the patient’s body.

What stage is a grade 3 breast cancer?

Stage 3 means that the cancer has spread from the breast to lymph nodes close to the breast or to the skin of the breast or to the chest wall. This is also called locally advanced breast cancer.

What stage of breast cancer requires a mastectomy?

A mastectomy may be a treatment option for many types of breast cancer, including: Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), or noninvasive breast cancer. Stages I and II (early-stage) breast cancer. Stage III (locally advanced) breast cancer — after chemotherapy.

What stage is cancer spread to lymph nodes?

stage 3 – the cancer is larger and may have spread to the surrounding tissues and/or the lymph nodes (or “glands”, part of the immune system) stage 4 – the cancer has spread from where it started to at least 1 other body organ, also known as “secondary” or “metastatic” cancer.

What stage is breast cancer that has spread to lymph nodes?

Stage IV is the most advanced stage of breast cancer. It has spread to nearby lymph nodes and to distant parts of the body beyond the breast. This means it possibly involves your organs — such as the lungs, liver, or brain — or your bones.

How serious is breast cancer in lymph nodes?

The bottom line. When breast cancer is found in the lymph nodes, it means that cancer has spread from the primary tumor and is at least stage 2. Lymph node involvement is an important part of staging and in determining which treatments are most likely to be effective.

Is lymph node positive breast cancer curable?

If the cancer has spread to regional lymph nodes, cure is still the goal, but a proportion of women with node-positive cancer will also have subclinical metastatic disease that may or may not be cured by surgery and systemic chemotherapy.