Clinicopathologic study of invasive micropapillary carcinoma of the breast

// Shen-li Tang 1, 2 , Ji-qiao Yang 1, 2 , Zheng-gui Du 1, 2 , Qiu-wen Tan 1, 2 , Yu-ting Zhou 1, 2 , Di Zhang 1, 2 and Qing Lv 1, 2 1 Department of Breast Surgery, West China Hospital/West China School of Medicine, Sichuan University, 610041, P.R. China 2 Laboratory of Breast Disease, West China Hospital/West China School of Medicine, Sichuan University, 610041, P.R. China Correspondence to: Qing Lv, email: lvqingwestchina@163.com Keywords: breast cancer, invasive micropapillary carcinoma, locoregional recurrence, prognostic factors, survival Received: September 20, 2016     Accepted: February 21, 2017     Published: March 21, 2017 ABSTRACT Invasive micropapillary carcinoma (IMPC) is a rare subtype of breast carcinoma. It is presumed to be more aggressive than invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC), though it is uncertain whether the prognoses of IMPC and IDC differ. In this retrospective study, we compared the clinicopathologic characteristics and survival between 170 female patients with IMPC (pure or mixed with IDC) and 728 with pure IDC. The IMPC patients had higher clinical stages and histologic grades, higher incidences of lymphovascular invasion and axillary lymph node extracapsular extension, and a higher degree of lymph node involvement than IDC patients. Moreover, IMPC was associated with increases in estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) positivity and HER-2 overexpression. Although locoregional recurrence-free survival (LRRFS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) were poorer in IMPC patients than IDC patients, overall survival and distant metastasis survival did not differ between the two groups. Multivariate analysis revealed that IMPC was an independent prognostic factor for LRRFS in breast cancer, and IMPC patients had poorer clinicopathologic characteristics and poorer RFS and LRRFS than IDC patients. We therefore suggest that to improve treatment decisions, patients with breast carcinoma be tested for the presence of this specific subtype.