Lobular vs Ductal in breast cancer

[anuppayyanadaan]

How do lobular and ductal differ in breast cancer? is there any difference in symptoms, manifestation, severity, metasis, treatment regimen, duration of treatment etc....Can I have some clarification from experts please?

[MsLockYourPosts TeamBCI]

First you need to know if the diagnosis is lobular or ductal carcinoma "in situ" or invasive lobular or ductal carcinoma. There is a very good explanation of this at breastcancer.org under types of breast cancer.

Invasive breast cancers would be treated fairly aggressively. Lobular carcinoma in situ is considered to be more of a pre cancer to be monitored carefully in many cases without treatment. Ductal carcinoma in situ -DCIS - means that the cancer has not spread outside of the milk duct involved. Depending on the size of the tumor a lumpectomy could be sufficient with follow up rather than a mastectomy.

Once you know which diagnosis is involved people here can address your specific questions. I hope the Breast Cancer site helps to clarify things for you. If you are sharing personal information in future posts, once you know more about the diagnosis in question, you might want to mark your question community only (at the bottom of the post). It protects both the original poster's privacy and that of anyone responding to your post.

Pat

[sumeet_shah Administrator in reply to MsLockYourPosts]

Well explained, Pat, as usual. Thank you.

[sumeet_shah Administrator]

Symptoms, presentation and most other things remain same. Except some differences related to biology of the cancer, meaning the pattern in which it grows and spreads. Chemotherapy and other treatments remain more or less same.

[anuppayyanadaan in reply to sumeet_shah]

Thanks Dr

[anuppayyanadaan in reply to anuppayyanadaan]

Is it true that recurrence chances are higher in the case of lobular breast cancer? and some say it spreads relatively slower?

[MsLockYourPosts TeamBCI]

Is it invasive lobular carcinoma or lobular carcinoma in situ?

[anuppayyanadaan in reply to MsLockYourPosts]

It is invasive lobular carcinoma, specified as pt3N3.

[MsLockYourPosts TeamBCI]

This is one for the doctors in the group.