Invasive lobular carcinoma

[patty14]

My sister was diagnosed last Fall with Invasive Lobular Carcinoma.   I'm going to have my yearly mammogram this morning, but this type of cancer generally isn't detected through mammograms.  My sister noticed a difference in her breast tissue and the cancer was discovered through an ultrasound.   Does this type of breast cancer usually run in families?  

[bluebutterfly2222]

My sincere sympathy on the loss of your brother.

It must have been a blow to learn your sister also had cancer! I hope she is doing okay now?

I don't think we have  answers yet regarding why someone gets a particular type of breast cancer (although various associations have been indentified for some types), or even--other than people with genetic mutations or other known factors that elevate risk-- why someone is in  the 1 out of 8 women who get breast cancer while someone else is in the 7 out of 8 who don't.

We do know we are ALL at risk (regardless of family history), so we all need to practice regulare breast health surveillance and incorporate as many  risk-reducing lifestyle factors as possible.

Best wishes to both you and your sister,
bluebutterfly

[patty14]

thanks for the information....My sister and I are both pre-menopausal.  So HRT is not an issue..   I wonder what would have caused her to develop this type of cancer.  My brother passed away last year with Renal Cell Carcinoma.   Patty

[bluebutterfly2222]

Hi,

About 75-80% of invasive breast cancers are ductal (IDC) and 10-15% are lobular (ILC).

I'm not aware of the latter  type of  BC running in families. However, an increasted risk for it is associated with the use of combination estrogen/progestin HRT, so avoiding that  medication is probably the main thing you can do to avoid lobular BC. (One study found that women who took that form of HRT for 3 years or more had 4 times the risk for ILC.)

By way of history,there was an observable increase in BC, particularly  invasive lobular BC, a number of years ago when  HRT was being heavily prescribed, due to being promoted as preventing loss of bone density, heart disease, and cognitive problems, in additional to treating menopausal symptoms.

One study reported that women then currently taking HRT were about three times as likely as other women to be among the cancer patients and those who used combined HRT for three or more years had a higher risk of lobular cancer. They said that incidence of invasive lobular cancer rose by 52 percent in the United States between 1987 and 1999 and that cases of ductal-lobular breast cancer rose by 96 percent during that time, while rates of ductal cancer rose only 3 percent over the same period. They concluded,"Our research suggests that the use of post-menopausal hormone-replacement therapy, specifically the use of combined estrogen-plus-progestin preparations, may be contributing to this increase."

Since then, many women made the decision to stop HRT and doctors began  recommending only  using the lowest effective dose, for the shortest period of time possible, to treat menopause symptoms that  significantly affect a woman's quality of life, and breast cancer rates have leveled off again.

Best wishes,
bluebutterfly