Keywords
tubular breast cancer, cribriform breast carcinoma
papillary breast carcinoma
medullary breast cancer
apocrine breast cancer
adenosquamous breast cancer
secretory breast cancer
adenosquamous cystic breast cancer
acinar cell breast carcinoma
special types and subtypes of breast cancer
breast cancer
How to Cite
Abstract
Breast cancer (BC) is a heterogeneous disease, with different clinical, morphological and biological characteristics. These characteristics affect the clinical course of the disease, prognosis and response to systemic treatment. In the vast majority of cases, clinicians encounter invasive non-specific BC, with only 5–15 % of cases presenting as invasive lobular carcinoma. Special morphological subtypes of BC are identified even less often.
Although there are clear treatment standards for non-specific BC, there are none for most special forms. This is partly due to the discrepancy between their biological characteristics and clinical course. Some special variants of BC with an unfavorable immunohistochemical profile may, however, be characterized by a good prognosis. Additionally, both favorable and aggressive courses are encountered within one morphological variant. The true effectiveness of classical methods of treating BC is difficult to assess due to the lack of randomized clinical trials involving patients with special forms of the disease. Most scientific publications on this topic are limited to small retrospective studies or descriptions of individual clinical cases. Consequently, the treatment algorithm for special forms of BC may sometimes differ radically from the recommended standards of treatment and may not correspond to the biological characteristics of the tumor. This publication reflects an analysis of the literature and our own data on favorable forms of BC. These forms include mucinous carcinoma, tubular carcinoma, cribriform carcinoma, papillary carcinoma, medullary carcinoma, apocrine carcinoma, adenosquamous carcinoma, secretory carcinoma, adenoid cystic carcinoma, and acinar cell carcinoma of the breast. The second part considers those with an unfavorable or an uncertain prognosis.
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