Metaplastic carcinoma of the breast: analysis of eight Asian patients with special emphasis on two unusual cases presenting with inflammatory-type breast cancer

Abstract

Metaplastic carcinoma of the breast is a rare form of breast cancer and has an uncertain prognostic significance. Cases from Asian countries have never been reported in the English literature. Between 1983 and 1998, we encountered 8 cases in our institution. There were 7 women and one man with a median age of 52.5 (37-73) years. Pathologic diagnosis included three poorly-differentiated adenosquamous carcinomas, two adenocarcinomas with spindle cell metaplasia, two matrix-producing carcinomas and one carcinosarcoma. Estrogen receptor was positive in 2 (25%) patients. Local recurrence or distant metastasis developed in 3 patients within one year of initial treatment. With a mean follow-up of 81 months (range, 19-183 months), 5 patients were disease-free at the time of this report. Interestingly, two of our patients had presented with huge-sized inflammatory breast cancer and were refractory to neo-adjuvant chemotherapy, but enjoyed an unexpected long disease-free survival after mastectomy. Although the clinical course of our patients appeared in general similar to that of the Western series, the two patients with inflammatory breast carcinoma ran a very unusual course, which may deserve further characterization.