Clinicopathological features of invasive micropapillary carcinoma of the breast

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the clinical and immunohistopathological findings of invasive micropapillary carcinoma (IMPC) of the breast. In total, 25 patients were included in the present study, all of whom were diagnosed with IMPC. The mammography and ultrasound scanning (US) findings were analysed retrospectively according to the American College of Radiology Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System lexicon. Surgical specimens obtained from the patients were microscopically reviewed in consensus by two pathologists with a specialisation in breast pathology. All the patients presented with palpable lumps in the breast, a high-density irregular mass associated with microcalcifications revealed by mammography and an irregular hypoechoic mass with a spiculated margin revealed by US. Axillary lymph node metastases were identified in 80% of the patients. Immunohistochemical studies revealed the lesions to be highly positive for the oestrogen receptor (ER) and c-erbB-2 (88% and 84%, respectively). Although no significant imaging characteristics were found to distinguish IMPC from typical invasive ductal carcinoma, IMPC resulted in nodal metastases and was highly positive for ER and c-erbB-2. This clinical significance indicates the significance of this entity being recognised by pathologists and surgeons.

Invasive micropapillary carcinoma of the breast has a better long‐term survival than invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast in spite of its aggressive clinical presentations: a comparison based on large population database and case–control analysis

“…Our study found that the rate of ER and PR positivity was 88.0% and 75.7% respectively, significantly higher than that of IDC, which was in accord with most literature . The comparable survival outcome of IMPC was usually attributed to the high rate of ER positivity .…”

Clinicopathologic features of invasive metaplastic and micropapillary breast carcinoma: comparison with invasive ductal carcinoma of breast

“…Furthermore, a significant number of metaplastic carcinoma were found to be triple negative (84%), unlike DC, NOS which were predominantly luminal B type. The findings of our study are consistent with other studies which demonstrated that triple negative characteristic was the predominant molecular subtype in metaplastic carcinoma [ 18 , 25 ]. Due to triple negative characteristic of metaplastic carcinomas, they are regarded as more aggressive type of cancers which are often less-responsive to endocrine therapy [ 24 ].…”

Invasive Micropapillary Carcinoma of the Breast: An Update

“…Some studies showed HER2/ neu þ rates between approximately 10% and 30%, [14][15][16]23,24 whereas others reported between approximately 50% and 80%. 34,38,41,44 Regarding the molecular classification, more cases of IMPC fall into the luminal A and luminal B subtypes than they do with IDC-NOS. 39 The features of IMPC are summarized in the Table. In addition, IMPC should be differentiated from IDC-NOS by retraction artifacts.…”

“…7,[14][15][16][17]23,24,[37][38][39][40][41][42][43] One study of 624 patients with IMPC revealed a poor prognosis in the patients who had a tumor lacking in estrogen receptor expression. 7 The status of the HER2/neu protein expression or gene amplification in IMPC is not consistent in literature.…”