Pathologic Study of Breast Cancer in Korea

Lee, Sang Kook; Ko, Gyung Hyuck

Abstract

From a retrospective study of 366 cases of breast cancer, following results are obtained. 1) Relative incidence of breast cancer is increased during recent 7 years as compared with total female cancer. 2) Invasive ductal carcinoma and invasive ductal carcinoma with a predominant intraductal component (ICPI) account for 78% of total breast cancer, and its ratio shows little variance during recent 7 years and as compared with previous studies. 3) The incidence of invasive lobular carcinoma is increased as compared with 10 years ago, but it seems more likely that the increase is due to difference in diagnostic criteria rather than due to real increase in incidence. 4) The average patients' age of five major histologic types of breast cancer is 47.3 year. The patient's age of invasive ductal carcinoma is highest and that of ICPI is lowest. 5) Outer upper quadrant is the most frequent site of breast cancer. Left side is slightly more frequent than right side. There is little variance among the histologic types in tumor location. 6) The average symptom duration of patients of major types of breast cancer is 8.4 month. It is longest in invasive ductal carcinoma and shortest in ICPI. 7) Invasive lobular carcinoma is largest in tumor size and intraductal carcinoma is smallest, among the major histological types. 8) Intraductal carcinoma is most freqnently accompanied by nipple discharge and Paget's disease. 9) The rate of axillary lymph node metastasis is highest in invasive lobular carcinoma, followed by invasive ductal carcinoma, medullary carcinoma, and ICPI, in order of freqnency. 10) Distant metastasis is to the bone, lung, liver and brain, in order of freqnency. Medullary carcinoma shows the highest rate of distant metastasis. 11) The important prognostic factors of breast cancer are histologic types, status of axillary lymph node metastasis, size of tumor and histologic grade of malignancy. But there is little difference in prognosis between invasive ductal carcinoma and medullary carcinoma.