Pancreatic metastases and first reported gallbladder metastasis from phyllodes tumor of the breast

Abstract

Distant metastases from breast phyllodes tumor (PT) are very rare. They usually occur in lung and bones. We report a case of a 51-year-old woman who was hospitalized in the digestive surgical department for atypical epigastric pain. Her medical history started 2 years ago when she underwent a curative left mastectomy for a malignant PT of the breast. Radical surgery was indicated to her resectable pancreatic tumor diagnosed on computed tomography. Histological exam confirmed that it was pancreatic metastases of her breast PT. Adjuvant chemotherapy was indicated. Three months after the surgery, the patient developed gallbladder and brain metastases. She died 5 weeks later. With this case, we enrich the literature with another example of pancreatic metastasis from PT and we report, for the first time, gallbladder metastasis. The very high aggressiveness of this tumor suggests that markers of tumor malignancy need to be sought after by subsequent studies.

Unusual Metastatic Sites in Malignant Phyllodes Tumor Detected on FDG PET/CT

“…Axillary nodal metastasis is rare for malignant phyllodes tumor but distant metastasis occurs in up to 22% of patients. 4 The most common sites of metastasis from malignant phyllodes tumors are lungs, bones, and liver, 3 while other sites of metastases have been reported in multiple organs, such as the heart, 8 9 pancreas, 8 10 gallbladder, 10 stomach, 11 duodenum, 12 small bowel, 13 adrenals, 14 kidneys, 15 and ovaries. 16 Conventional computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging suffer from a limited scope of image to a dedicated body part of interest.…”