go to breastcancer.org. It will define each stage with their letters.

That's correct karenS. I was stage 3 .. As my cancer only metastasized to my lymph nodes .. No other organ. Stage 4 means metastasized to your organs.( mamaH) I just don't understand the letters ppl are stating after their stage numbers. Example lla, lllb, etc. does anyone know what these alphabetic letters stand for???

Mets doesn't necessarily mean stage IV. My was considered mets, but only stage Iii. It was mets to my lymph nodes. My understanding is that stage IV applies when it mets to other areas outside the breast & lymph nodes.

Your pathology report will tell you how many lymph nodes were removed, and of those, how many tested positive for the presence of cancer cells.

For example, 0/3 means 3 nodes were removed and 0 were positive

while 2/5 means 5 were removed and 2 were positive.

According to what I've read, the roman numerals represent staging.

Here's the site http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/diagnosis/...