Resolved question:
I have an ALLRED score of 8 and lobular breast cancer. I also have a few itc's (isolated tumor cells in my bone marrow).
I had thought that the AI's would just make them all go dormant since my tumor is so estrogen positive.
But now I have heard that even tumors with >99% ER positive cells, ALWAYS have some ER negative. (I don't know why). Is this true?
That means that some of my ER negative cells can have gone to the bone marrow--and the AI's won't help with them.
Is my good prognosis ruined? Help! What will kill those negative ER itc's?
Submitted:
4 Days
Category:
Oncologist
Hello,
Thank you for your query at DoctorSpring.com
The biological features of cancer cells are very complex. In your case, though bone marrow ITCs were present, they are still not considered in routine clinical practice till now as it needs clinical validation for routine use.
When ALLRED score is good, overall prognosis is good compared to ER negative group. So your prognosis is going to be good in general. As I told before, I expect a good outcome in your case.
Since you had chemotherapy also, they may be acting on the ER negative cells as well as ER positive cells. So all cells throughout the body will be exposed to therapy. However, cells can adapt to survive, not all though.
I would like to conclude that overall outcome of the group with good features like yours (ERpositivity) is expected to be good(in spite of ITCs). However individual outcome is variable and totally unpredictable in some cases which is still an enigma.
Hope your concern is addressed.
Feel free to discuss further,
Regards.