Tubular carcinoma

Tubular carcinoma is a subtype of invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast. More rarely, tubular carcinomas may arise in the pancreas or kidney. Most tubular carcinomas begin in the milk duct of the breast and spread to healthy tissue around it.

Pathology

Although tubular carcinoma has been considered a special-type tumor, recent trend has been to classify it as a low-grade, invasive NOS carcinoma because there is a continuous spectrum from pure tubular carcinomas to mixed NOS carcinomas with tubular features, depending on the percentage of the lesion that displays tubular features.

Histology

Tubular carcinomas are generally around 1 cm. or smaller, and are made up of tubules. They are usually low-grade.Elastosis has been noted as common but is not present in all cases.

Prevalence

Prevalence has previously been controversial, with contradictory reports from studies reporting either very low prevalence, or a high prevalence. With the increasing availability of screening mammography, however, tubular carcinomas are being diagnosed earlier, and more recent studies suggest tubular carcinomas represent between 8% and 27% of all breast cancers.

Prognosis

Tubular carcinoma is one of the histologic types of breast cancer with a more favorable outcome.

See also

• Breast cancer classification
• Ductal carcinoma in situ – a common precancerous or Stage 0 breast cancer
• Invasive cribriform carcinoma of the breast – a rare breast cancer that consists of >50% cribriform histopathology but commonly has small or large areas (<50%) closely resembling tubular carcinoma histopathology.
• Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm
• Invasive carcinoma of no special type
• Invasive lobular carcinoma
• Invasion (cancer)

Notes

References

Further reading

• Cserni, Gábor (March 2020). "Histological type and typing of breast carcinomas and the WHO classification changes over time". Pathologica. 112 (1): 25–41. doi:10.32074/1591-951X-1-20. PMC 8138497. PMID 32202537.
• Erber, Ramona; Hartmann, Arndt (August 2020). "Histology of Luminal Breast Cancer". Breast Care. Basel. 15 (4): 327–336. doi:10.1159/000509025. PMC 7490665. PMID 32982642.
• Sanders, Melinda A.; Mayer, Ingrid A.; Chakravarthy, Bapsi (3 March 2017). "22 Tubular Carcinoma of the Breast". In Raghavan, Derek; Ahluwalia, Manmeet S.; Blanke, Charles D.; et al. (eds.). Textbook of Uncommon Cancer (5 ed.). John Wiley & Sons. pp. 338–344. ISBN 978-1-119-19621-1. OCLC 1069570078.
• Zhang, Hanwen; Zhang, Ning (December 2020). "Special subtypes with favorable prognosis in breast cancer: A registry-based cohort study and network meta-analysis". Cancer Treatment Reviews. 91: 102–108. doi:10.1016/j.ctrv.2020.102108. PMID 33075683.