TITLE:
Clinicopathological Study of Epithelial Metaplastic Breast Cancer
AUTHORS:
Masahiro Kitada, Shunsuke Yasuda, Nana Takahashi, Satoshi Okazaki, Kei Ishibashi, Satoshi Hayashi
KEYWORDS:
Breast Cancer, Metaplastic Breast Cancer, Triple Negative Type, Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Cancer Therapy,
Vol.7 No.13,
December
22,
2016
ABSTRACT: Introduction: Metaplastic breast cancer (MBC) is a rare
pathological type with an incidence rate of not more than 1%, and has been
reported to be often detected after its progression and highly malignant with a
high proportion of triple negative type tumors, with poor outcomes as compared
to IDC [1] [2] [3]. We analyzed clinicopathological characteristics of patients who underwent
surgery for epithelial MBC at our department. Patients and Methods: From January 2000 to March 2014, a total of 2120
patients underwent surgery for breast cancer, and MBC was diagnosed in 15 of
these patients. Fourteen of the 15 had epithelial MBC and were included in this
study. The present study compared clinopathological characteristics of MBC with
those of IDC of triple negative type (TN type group) and IDC of non-triple
negative type (IDC group). Results: Breast conserving surgery was performed in 7 patients with MBC (50%), a
proportion clearly lower than the 64.3% in the IDC group. The mean tumor size
was 3.8 cm, which was greater than the 2.13 cm in the TN type group and the 1.7
cm in the IDC group. About nuclear grade, the proportion of grade III was
57.1%, markedly higher than the 38.6% in the TN type group and the 12.6% in the IDC group. All patients were estrogen
receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PgR) negative; 11 patients were TN
type tumors and 3 were HER2 type. Conclusion: We
studied patients who underwent surgery for epithelial MBC. The examined cases
showed clinopathological characteristics of the disease, including large tumors
with a highly malignant nature at the initial detection, higher Ki-67 levels,
ER and PgR negativity (all cases), mostly TN type, and a high recurrence rate.