› Forums › General Melanoma Community › micromets?
- This topic has 6 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 3 months ago by
Lil0909.
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- November 19, 2015 at 2:53 am
My doctor told me my sentinol node biopsy was positive with melanoma. He said I had microscopic melanoma because they could not see or feel it but only see it with immunochemistry and microscope. I asked how much because I’ve seen people say they found 20 cells. He kind of chuckled and said pathology doesn’t count each cell. I saw the path report it just says positive for melanoma with immunochemistry stains s100 melana mart1. Is this micromets?
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- November 19, 2015 at 5:28 am
It's basically "micro" versus "macro". Macro is when there is obviously visible cancer in a node (or other structure). No microscope is needed to see involvement. Micro means that slicing, dicing and especially staining a sample to show melanocytes is needed to confirm mets. If you had macro, it might have other terms like extracapsular extension. These are pretty general terms. The stains listed show they have stained the sample. This is important because melanocytes don't show up well without staining and that is something you want to see. If your doctor said you had micromets, then that's likely what you had. But micro would mean something from a few cells to many cells as long as they are still internal to the lymph node and not causing it to enlarge, so not the most helpful in practical terms. Counting cells would be rare and would likely only happen in those rare cases where there really are just a few cells seen (not all that common). All I can say is that you want micro over macro.
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- November 19, 2015 at 5:28 am
It's basically "micro" versus "macro". Macro is when there is obviously visible cancer in a node (or other structure). No microscope is needed to see involvement. Micro means that slicing, dicing and especially staining a sample to show melanocytes is needed to confirm mets. If you had macro, it might have other terms like extracapsular extension. These are pretty general terms. The stains listed show they have stained the sample. This is important because melanocytes don't show up well without staining and that is something you want to see. If your doctor said you had micromets, then that's likely what you had. But micro would mean something from a few cells to many cells as long as they are still internal to the lymph node and not causing it to enlarge, so not the most helpful in practical terms. Counting cells would be rare and would likely only happen in those rare cases where there really are just a few cells seen (not all that common). All I can say is that you want micro over macro.
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- November 19, 2015 at 5:28 am
It's basically "micro" versus "macro". Macro is when there is obviously visible cancer in a node (or other structure). No microscope is needed to see involvement. Micro means that slicing, dicing and especially staining a sample to show melanocytes is needed to confirm mets. If you had macro, it might have other terms like extracapsular extension. These are pretty general terms. The stains listed show they have stained the sample. This is important because melanocytes don't show up well without staining and that is something you want to see. If your doctor said you had micromets, then that's likely what you had. But micro would mean something from a few cells to many cells as long as they are still internal to the lymph node and not causing it to enlarge, so not the most helpful in practical terms. Counting cells would be rare and would likely only happen in those rare cases where there really are just a few cells seen (not all that common). All I can say is that you want micro over macro.
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- November 19, 2015 at 6:07 pm
I 2nd Janner's comments. In the words of my Oncologist – you only need 1 cell of melanoma in a lymph node to be classified as Stage 3. From what I've been told, 1 cell v. 30 cells doesn't make much of a difference, especially b/c pathology does not look at every single solitary cell in your lymph node, they look at slices… so pathology could say "1 cell" but there def could be more.
What is more important is that the melanoma was able to escape the original tumor and lodge itself in a lymph node. What does seem to make a difference in prognosis is micro v. macro, and you would rather have micro than macro. I think some people get a cell count just b/c there are few enough cells that the pathologist is actually able to count them, which would be virtually impossible and unnecessary to do if you have macro mets.
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- November 19, 2015 at 6:07 pm
I 2nd Janner's comments. In the words of my Oncologist – you only need 1 cell of melanoma in a lymph node to be classified as Stage 3. From what I've been told, 1 cell v. 30 cells doesn't make much of a difference, especially b/c pathology does not look at every single solitary cell in your lymph node, they look at slices… so pathology could say "1 cell" but there def could be more.
What is more important is that the melanoma was able to escape the original tumor and lodge itself in a lymph node. What does seem to make a difference in prognosis is micro v. macro, and you would rather have micro than macro. I think some people get a cell count just b/c there are few enough cells that the pathologist is actually able to count them, which would be virtually impossible and unnecessary to do if you have macro mets.
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- November 19, 2015 at 6:07 pm
I 2nd Janner's comments. In the words of my Oncologist – you only need 1 cell of melanoma in a lymph node to be classified as Stage 3. From what I've been told, 1 cell v. 30 cells doesn't make much of a difference, especially b/c pathology does not look at every single solitary cell in your lymph node, they look at slices… so pathology could say "1 cell" but there def could be more.
What is more important is that the melanoma was able to escape the original tumor and lodge itself in a lymph node. What does seem to make a difference in prognosis is micro v. macro, and you would rather have micro than macro. I think some people get a cell count just b/c there are few enough cells that the pathologist is actually able to count them, which would be virtually impossible and unnecessary to do if you have macro mets.
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