Cancer Management and Research (Oct 2018)
Clinicopathologic characteristics and clinical outcomes of pure type and mixed type of tubular carcinoma of the breast: a single-institution cohort study
Abstract
Wen-Wen Zhang,1,* San-Gang Wu,2,* Yi-Hong Ling,3 Jia-Yuan Sun,1 Zhi-Qing Long,1 Xin Hua,1 Yong Dong,4 Feng-Yan Li,1 Zhen-Yu He,1 Huan-Xin Lin1 1Department of Radiation Oncology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in Southern China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Radiation Oncology, Xiamen Cancer Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Pathology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in Southern China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Radiation Oncology, the Third People’s Hospital of Dongguan, Dongguan, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Introduction: We aimed to evaluate the clinicopathologic characteristics and clinical outcomes of the mixed type versus the pure type of tubular carcinoma (TC) of the breast in a retrospective cohort study. Materials and methods: Patients were categorized into the following three groups: patients with pure TC of the breast (the PTC group), patients with TC and carcinoma in situ of the breast (the TC-CIS group), and patients with TC and other invasive carcinomas of the breast (the TC-IC group). We compared the clinicopathologic characteristics and treatment outcomes of the three groups. The primary end point of this study was breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS). Secondary end points included distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) and locoregional recurrence (LRR). Results: A total of 68 patients were included in this study, including 31 patients in the PTC group, 12 in the TC-CIS group, and 25 in the TC-IC group. Our data showed that PTC and TC-CIS were more likely to be smaller in size (P=0.014) and had substantially less nodal involvement (P=0.019), compared with TC-IC. The median follow-up time was 64.3 months (range, 3.78–223.2 months) for all patients. No locoregional relapse was observed in any group during the follow-up period. The 10-year BCSS of the PTC, TC-CIS, and TC-IC groups was 100%, 100%, and 95.2%, respectively, and the 10-year DMFS was 92.3%, 100%, and 96.0%, respectively. There was no significant difference in terms of BCSS (P=0.53) or DMFS (P=0.84) between the three groups. Conclusion: This study indicates that both the pure type and mixed type of TC of the breast show very low LRR and distant metastasis rate and have excellent survival. The TC-IC group is likely to show good prognosis similar to the PTC group. Further clinical trials with larger sample sizes as well as molecular and genetic studies are warranted. Keywords: pure type of tubular carcinoma, mixed type of tubular carcinoma, clinicopathologic characteristics, clinical outcomes
