Objective: To assess the clinical manifestation, management and outcome in patients with medullary carcinoma of the breast (MBC).
Methods: Retrospective analysis was carried out on patients with MBC who were admitted from January 1995 to December 1999.
Results: A total of 616 female patients treated for breast carcinoma, 26 cases (4.2%) were histopathologically confirmed MBC. The mean age was (45.8 +/- 10.6) years. The tumor size was among 1-5 cm and axillary lymph node involvement was 23.1%; there was no statistically significant correlation between tumor size and metastatic axillary lymph node. Estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and HER-2/neu assay were performed immunohistochemically, and the overexpression was 26.3%, 21.1% and 5.3% respectively. All patients underwent operation and polychemotherapy (5-fluorouracil, methotrexate, cyclophosphamide), hormone therapy with Tamoxifen was applied in five patients, and three cases received postoperative irradiation. The follow-up period ranged from 5 to 9 years. Overall five-year survival was 88.4%.
Conclusions: MBC is a favorable histological type of breast carcinoma with good prognosis. Operation and chemotherapy are main procedures for MBC. The significance of molecular biologic parameters in the prognosis of MBC should not be overlooked.