Paget's disease of the male breast: case report and a point of view from actual literature

Abstract

Introduction: Paget disease of the nipple in man is a very rare breast cancer, and there are not standard procedures or guidelines. In any cases, a Paget's disease could hide an invasive ductal breast cancer.

Case description: We report the case of a 77-years old man affected by Alzheimer's disease, who presented to our attention because of an ulcerated palpable mass in the right nipple. A biopsy of the lesion showed "intra-epidermic proliferation of epitelioid cells, associated with linfo-plasmacellular infiltration of superficial dermis, compatible with Paget's disease (pTis)". We discussed the case in the multidisciplinary meeting and decided to subject the patient to surgery, so a right mastectomy plus sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) were performed. Histo-pathological examination revealed "invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast, associated with a small component of in situ ductal carcinoma and Paget's disease of the nipple with superficial ulceration". Resection margins were free. Sentinel lymph node was negative. Biological features were as follows: ER 95%, PR 60%, Her-2/neu 1+, Ki-67 35%. The patient was discharged in the third post-operative day in good conditions. In the following weeks the patient's healing process was good and free of complications.

Conclusions: Clinical recognition of Paget's disease is very important also in man, because it can be the alarm bell for an underlying invasive ductal breast cancer, often more aggressive than in woman.