Letter to Editor

The Pathology of Breast Cancer

George Alex*
Department of Breast Surgery, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, UK


*Corresponding author: George Alex, Department of Breast Surgery, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, UK


Published: 29 Nov, 2017
Cite this article as: Alex G. The Pathology of Breast Cancer. Clin Surg. 2017; 2: 1765.

Letter to Editor

When reporting on a breast carcinoma specimen, it is required that reporting be done giving information about several different aspects [1]. It is easy to be overwhelmed with the histopathology data. The mnemonic “STINGER.COM” is meant as an aide memoire regarding the key things to be reported on.
Type/Total size
Type i.e. Ductal, Lobular etc
Total size of tumour i.e. Invasive + DCIS
Invasion (Lymphovascular) i.e. Absent/Present
Nodes (involvement) e.g. 0/2, 2/5 etc
Grade i.e. 1, 2 or 3
Extent i.e. Localised, Multifocal, Multicentric etc
Receptors
ER e.g. 0/8, 8/8 etc
PR e.g. 0/8, 8/8 etc
HER 2 status
FISH status
Carcinoma in situ
Absent/present
Size in mm
Type i.e. DCIS, LCIS etc
Other pathology
Absent/Present
Type i.e. Paget’s, Atypical Ductal Hyperplasia etc
Margins/Microinvasion
Margins i.e. distance of disease from closest relevant margin
Microinvasion Absent/Present

References

  1. Ellis I, Al-Sam S, Anderson N, Carder P, Deb R, Girling A, et al. Pathology reporting of breast disease in surgical excision specimens incorporating the dataset for histological reporting of breast cancer. 2016.