Clinicopathologic features and incidence of invasive lobular carcinoma in Japanese women

Abstract

Intending to clarify the true incidence of invasive lobular carcinoma of the breast in Japanese women as well as the frequency of unilateral multicentricity, 362 cases of clinically defined monocentric breast cancer without pre-operative biopsy (previously fine needle aspiration or needle biopsy were routinely carried out for every case) were examined by whole mammary gland serial sectioning. On the basis of pathology and the World Health Organization classification of breast tumors, each case was assigned to one of two main histologic types: invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) or invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC). Invasive lobular carcinoma was further separated into classic and variant types by employing previously published criteria. Twenty-one cases of ILC (5.8%) were diagnosed, which is more than in most previous Japanese studies. Unilateral multicentric breast carcinoma was detected in 9.5% of ILC and 16.1% of IDC (the difference was found not significant). Microscopically, ILC tumors were found to be, on average, larger than IDC. Patients with classic type ILC tended to be younger than those with variant type or IDC. Estrogen receptor expression was found more frequently in variant type ILC than in classic type. These results suggest that the incidence of invasive lobular carcinoma of the breast in Japanese women is low and that unilateral multicentricity is not significantly higher in ILC than in IDC.