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The Daily Insight

What is high grade ductal carcinoma in situ

Author

Lily Fisher

Published Mar 30, 2026

DCIS that is high grade, is nuclear grade 3, or has a high mitotic rate is more likely to come back (recur) after it is removed with surgery. DCIS that is low grade, is nuclear grade 1, or has a low mitotic rate is less likely to come back after surgery.

Is high grade DCIS serious?

People with high-grade DCIS have a higher risk of invasive cancer, either when the DCIS is diagnosed or at some point in the future. They also have an increased risk of the cancer coming back earlier — within the first 5 years rather than after 5 years.

Is ductal carcinoma in situ really cancer?

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) means the cells that line the milk ducts of the breast have become cancer, but they have not spread into surrounding breast tissue. DCIS is considered non-invasive or pre-invasive breast cancer.

Can high grade DCIS be cured?

No alternative medicine treatments have been found to cure DCIS or to reduce the risk of being diagnosed with an invasive breast cancer. Instead, complementary and alternative medicine treatments may help you cope with your diagnosis and the side effects of your treatment, such as distress.

What is the survival rate for high grade DCIS?

Multivariate analysis found that high grade DCIS is the only independent risk factors for margin involvement (HR 2.55, 95% CI 1.02-6.42). After median follow-up of 106 months (6-223 months), the overall survival was 97%.

Does high grade DCIS always become invasive?

DCIS is graded based on how the cancer cells from biopsy samples look under the microscope. While high-grade, intermediate-grade and low-grade DCIS can all develop into invasive cancer if left untreated, high-grade DCIS develops faster and becomes a more aggressive, invasive cancer.

How quickly does high grade DCIS grow?

It assumes that all breast carcinomas begin as DCIS and take 9 years to go from a single cell to an invasive lesion for the slowest growing lesions, 6 years for intermediate growing DCIS lesions, and 3 years for fast-growing DCIS lesions.

Can ductal carcinoma in situ come back?

When you have had DCIS, you are at higher risk for the cancer coming back or for developing a new breast cancer than a person who has never had breast cancer before. Most recurrences happen within the 5 to 10 years after initial diagnosis. The chances of a recurrence are under 30%.

Can DCIS spread after biopsy?

Because DCIS is not an invasive cancer and cannot spread to other parts of the body, whole body treatments, like chemotherapy, are not indicated for this stage of disease.

What happens if DCIS is left untreated?

The cells in DCIS are cancer cells. If left untreated, they may spread out of the milk duct into the breast tissue. If this happens, DCIS has become invasive (or infiltrating) cancer, which in turn can spread to lymph nodes or to other parts of the body.

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What is the treatment for carcinoma in situ?

TREATMENT APPROACH Patients with DCIS undergo local treatment with breast-conserving therapy (BCT) or mastectomy. BCT consists of lumpectomy (also called breast-conserving surgery, wide excision, or partial mastectomy) followed in most cases by adjuvant radiation.

Does high grade DCIS always come back?

DCIS that is high grade, is nuclear grade 3, or has a high mitotic rate is more likely to come back (recur) after it is removed with surgery. DCIS that is low grade, is nuclear grade 1, or has a low mitotic rate is less likely to come back after surgery.

How often does high grade DCIS return?

Results of a number of small studies (16-18,25,29,31-40) suggest that women whose initial DCIS lesions have comedo necrosis or high nuclear grade have a high recurrence rate (13%–38%) over 5–10 years, whereas women with low-nuclear-grade DCIS lesions or lesions without comedo necrosis have a low recurrence rate (5%–7%) …

Is ductal carcinoma in situ fatal?

DCIS refers to abnormal cells that are confined to the milk ducts. These cells have not yet spread into the surrounding normal breast tissue and cannot spread elsewhere in the body. It’s more of a precancer, or preinvasive lesion. So DCIS isn’t life-threatening, but it has the potential to become invasive cancer.

What percentage of high grade DCIS becomes invasive?

The largest studies on the natural history of DCIS suggest that more than 50% of patients with high-grade DCIS have the potential to progress to an invasive carcinoma in less than 5 years if left untreated, while low-grade DCIS has a similar progression but in a small percentage of patients (35–50%) and in a more …

Does DCIS come back after mastectomy?

Recurrence is rare following mastectomy for DCIS. Nevertheless, there remains a need to follow patients for in-breast, nodal, or contralateral breast events, which can occur long after the index DCIS has been treated.

Is mastectomy recommended for DCIS?

Mastectomy involves removal of the whole breast and is usually recommended if the DCIS affects a large area of the breast, if it has not been possible to get a clear area of normal tissue around the DCIS by wide local excision, or if there is more than one area of DCIS.

Does DCIS cause fatigue?

Fatigue. You may feel tired during and after treatment. Radiation therapy, chemotherapy, surgery and other treatments may cause you to have less energy.

What are the symptoms of carcinoma in situ?

  • Breast pain.
  • Bloody discharge from the nipple.
  • A palpable lump in the breast tissue.
  • A red, scaly rash known as Paget’s disease of the breast.

What is the difference between carcinoma and carcinoma in situ?

Carcinoma in situ, also called in situ cancer, is different from invasive carcinoma, which has spread to surrounding tissue, and from metastatic carcinoma, which has spread throughout the body to other tissues and organs. In general, carcinoma in situ is the earliest form of cancer, and is considered stage 0.

Can you drink alcohol with DCIS?

In conclusion, we found no support for an association of moderate alcohol consumption and risk of DCIS in postmenopausal women within the WHI clinical trial cohort. This finding suggests that alcohol use may have differential effects on noninvasive as compared with invasive breast cancer risk.

Does DCIS run in families?

There is also evidence from epidemiological studies that there is an inherited predisposition to DCIS. Women with DCIS have been shown to be 2.4 times (95 % CI 0.8, 7.2) more likely to have an affected mother and sister with breast cancer than controls [13].