Reference no: EM133586297

Assignment:

A 38-year-old female presents to her physician's office after she felt a lump in her breast. She is in apparent good health otherwise; does not smoke and drinks only socially. She gives a family history that her parents and two sisters are all living and in good health. Her grandparents are deceased, none from cancer. On examination, the physician identifies a mobile, nontender mass about 2 cm in diameter in the upper outer quadrant of the left breast. He finds no abnormalities in her right breast, nor could he palpitate axillary lymph nodes on either side. A mammogram showed a 2 cm mass suspicious for carcinoma. The patient was referred to a surgeon for a needle biopsy. The needle biopsy revealed "poorly differentiated invasive carcinoma." A lumpectomy and a sentinel lymph node biopsy were performed the following week, and confirmed the original diagnosis. Tumor cells were negative for estrogen and progesterone receptors. In the sentinel node specimen, two of the three lymph nodes were metastatic. A bone scan and chest X-ray were negative for distant metastasis.

1. Why is it significant to know if there is a family history of cancer?
2. What kind of surgery is a lumpectomy?
3. What is a sentinel node biopsy and why is it done?
4. Why is it important to know that the tumor cells were negative for the hormones estrogen and progesterone?
5. Has the cancer spread? How do you know?