Types Of Breast Cancer

The commonest type of breast cancer used to be called invasive ductal cancer but is now invasive breast cancer, not otherwise specified, and this accounts for 70-80% of most breast cancers. The other common type of invasive breast cancer is what is called lobular cancer, which makes up around 15% of invasive breast cancers. There are a number of other various subtypes and these categorisations are all based on the appearance of the cancers when they are looked at under the microscope. There are also non-invasive or in situ breast cancers and the overwhelmingly dominant type is what is called ductal carcinoma in situ,  also known as DCIS.

Although we categorise and give a name to the type of breast cancer from the appearances seen under the microscope, it is important to remember that each person’s cancer is individual to them. We use the broad general characteristics of the different types of cancers to help determine the best treatment for people with breast cancer but the fact that your cancer is individual to your genetic make-up is one of the reasons why there is variation in the behavior of what we think should be generally similar types of cancer and also in their responses to different treatments.

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