Affiliations: [a] Surgical Oncology, Mercy Medical Center, Baltimore, MD, USA
| [b] The Neuroendocrine Tumor Center, Mercy Medical Center, Baltimore, MD, USA
| [c] Department of Pathology, Mercy Medical Center, Baltimore, MD, USA
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Carlos A. Munoz-Zuluaga, Surgical Oncology, The Institute for Cancer Care, Mercy Medical Center, 227 St. Paul Place, Baltimore, Maryland, 21202-2001, USA. E-mail: cmunoz@mdmercy.com
Abstract: Primary neuroendocrine carcinoma of the breast (NECB) is a rare malignant tumor with controversial biological behavior and a lack of data guiding treatment decisions due to its scarcity. Cancer gene-expression profiling tests provide a better indication of clinical prognosis and help determine the best clinical management versus the traditional clinical and pathological parameters. This is a report of a NECB with a genetic assay that showed a low-risk tumor despite high-grade and poorly differentiated histopathological features. Patient outcomes correlate with the low risk classification without the need for adjuvant chemotherapy despite the standard clinical-pathologic approach. Analysis of cancer related genes expression and outcomes in historical NECB may elucidate new insight of this rare disease.
Keywords: Breast neoplasms, neuroendocrine tumor, gene expression
DOI: 10.3233/BD-170283
Journal: Breast Disease, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 99-103, 2017
