CLINICAL STUDY OF EIGHT CASES OF MEDULLARY CARCINOMA OF THE BREAST

Medullary carcinoma of the breast is a rare specific type breast cancer. It has peculiar clinical features including favorable prognosis. In a series of 373 cases of breast cancer operated on at the hospital from 1990 to the end of 1997, eight (2.1%) cases were initially diagnosed as medullary carcinoma of the breast by postoperative pathological study. In this study, the specimens from the eight tumors were re-evaluated according to the pathological criteria given by Ridolfi and his coworkers. Five tumors were classified as typical medullary carcinoma (TMC), and three tumors as atypical medullary carcinoma (AMC). Ultrasonography images revealed well-circumscribed, hypoechoic nodules. On mammography the tumors were unclassified masses with indistinct or circumscribed borders. Enhanced magnetic resonance imaging revealed homogeneously enhancing masses with well-defined borders. Although AMC is similar to TMC in pathological findings, AMC lacks in clinical characters of medullary carcinoma, and hence it is important to distinguish TMC from AMC. Any diagnostic modalities could not reliably help to distinguish TMC from AMC.