Breast Cancer

Question 1

What is fine needle aspiration?

Answer 1

Fine hollow needle used to drain mass and obtain sample of cells to look at under microscope

Question 2

What is a core biopsy?

Answer 2

Hollow needle used to remove several cores (tubes) of tissue, guided by ultrasound, MRI, or mammogram

Question 3

What is the grade of a cancer?

Answer 3

How well differentiated the cells are

Question 4

What is the stage of a cancer?

Answer 4

The spread of the cancer (i.e. metastases)

Question 5

Are breast cancer lumps usually painful or painless?

Answer 5

Painless

Question 6

Why wouldn’t you give a mammogram to a younger female? What scan could you use instead?

Answer 6

. Younger females have lots of milk ducts, which makes the breast tissue too dense to interpret
. Can use ultrasound instead

Question 7

When would you scan the breasts using MRI?

Answer 7

If you could feel a palpable lump or enlarged axillary nodes but couldn’t see anything on a mammogram

Question 8

Can men get breast cancer?

Answer 8

Yes

Question 9

What is the difference between core biopsy and fine needle aspiration (FNA)? Which is preferred?

Answer 9

. Core biopsy is histology (study tissues), whereas FNA is cytology (study cells)
. Core biopsy is preferred as can study whole tissue

Question 10

What is DCIS?

Answer 10

. Ductal carcinoma in situ

. Cancer contained within ducts that hasn’t breached basement membrane so can’t yet spread to other parts of body

Question 11

Why do you need to know if a breast cancer is DCIS or invasive? What would you do if the cancer had spread to the axilla?

Answer 11

. To determine if treatment of the axilla is necessary (most breast lymphatics drain to axilla)
. Would do ultrasound to confirm spread to axilla, then could do axillary clearance to clear all lymph nodes in axilla

Question 12

What is one main complication that can happen as a result of axillary clearance surgery?

Answer 12

Winged scapula or stiff shoulder joint movement due to damage to long thoracic nerve damage, which is normally innervated the serratus anterior

Question 13

What is the difference between sclerotic and lytic carcinoma?

Answer 13

Sclerotic lays down extra bits of weak bone, lytic breaks down bone

Question 14

Which gene mutation can increase the risk of breast cancer by about 60-80%?

Answer 14

BRCA1 or BRCA 2 mutation