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Review
. 2024 Aug;32(5):1037-1045.
doi: 10.1177/10668969231209780. Epub 2023 Oct 31.

Breast Carcinoma With Tubulopapillary Features Has a Distinct Immunophenotypic and Molecular Signature: A Report of Two Tumors and Literature Review

Affiliations
Review

Breast Carcinoma With Tubulopapillary Features Has a Distinct Immunophenotypic and Molecular Signature: A Report of Two Tumors and Literature Review

Felipe Carrasco-Tenezaca et al. Int J Surg Pathol. 2024 Aug.

Abstract

Breast carcinoma with tubulopapillary features is a newly described entity associated with poor prognosis with only 14 tumors reported in the literature. We report 2 additional tumors and identify novel immunohistochemical and molecular features of the tumor. The first tumor was from a 72-year-old woman with nonmetastatic breast carcinoma and the second was from a 32-year-old woman with metastatic breast carcinoma who received neoadjuvant therapy. Both tumors had high-grade nuclear features with a distinctive morphology characterized by infiltrating open glands with intratubular papillary and micropapillary projections in >90% of the invasive carcinoma. In addition to the usual predictors of aggressive behavior, both tumors showed a high expression of p16 and SOX10, which has not been previously described. Targeted tumor sequencing revealed pathogenic variants of TP53 in both tumors, in agreement with previous reports. Prior studies have shown a correlation between p16 and SOX10 expression with high-grade features and worse prognosis; typically seen in triple-negative carcinomas as demonstrated in both of our tumors. However, not all reported tumors of breast carcinoma with tubulopapillary features have demonstrated a triple-negative profile as there are a few reports of tumors with estrogen receptor and/or human epidermal growth factor 2 expression. Due to their distinct morphologic and molecular characteristics, breast carcinoma with tubulopapillary features may represent a new breast cancer histologic subtype.

Keywords: SOX10; high-grade breast carcinoma; p16; papillary carcinoma; targeted sequencing; tubulopapillary features.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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