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Secretory breast carcinoma: clinicopathological features and prognosis of 52 patients

  • Epidemiology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

Secretory breast carcinoma is a rare histological subtype of invasive breast cancer and considered with an indolent clinical behavior. This study was conducted to analyze the clinicopathological features of patients with secretory breast carcinoma (SBC), explore the outcome, and compare the prognostic difference with invasive ductal breast carcinoma (IDC).

Methods and materials

Patients with SBC diagnosed between 2006 and 2017 from Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center were included in the study, excluding patients with previous malignant tumor history and incomplete clinical data or follow-up records. Peculiar clinicopathological and immunohistochemical features of the cases were fully described. Clinical data of 4979 cases of IDC were also evaluated during this period. After propensity score matching, prognostic analysis of SBCs and IDCs was calculated by Kaplan–Meier method and landmark analysis method.

Results

The data of 52 patients diagnosed with SBC were identified from the pathological files. Among them, 47 patients were women, and 5 were men. The median age of the 52 SBCs was 46 years (mean, 48.1 years; range, 10–80 years). The tumor sizes ranged from 0.3 to 6.8 cm, with a mean of 3.5 cm. Eight patients (15.4%) had positive axillary lymph node involvement. The molecular classification was mostly triple-negative breast cancer (65.4%). Fluorescence in situ hybridization confirmed the presence of ETV6::NTRK3 rearrangement in 16 of 18 cases (88.9%). Furthermore, Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and landmark analysis demonstrated that there were no statistically significant differences in DFS and OS between SBC and IDC patients.

Conclusion

Although SBCs are generally associated with a favorable prognosis, our work exhibited that the clinicopathological features of SBC were partly different from former understandings, indicating that therapeutic procedure should be prudent. Further studies are necessary to fully identify the clinical behavior and predictive markers to improve diagnosis and management in this unique subtype of breast cancer.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82203789 and 82102683).

Funding

The authors have not disclosed any funding

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Author notes

  1. Yuan-Yuan Zhao and Hui-Juan Ge have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Breast Surgery, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Fudan University, 270 Dong-An Road, Shanghai, 200032, People’s Republic of China

    Yuan-Yuan Zhao, Zhi-Ming Shao & Shuang Hao

  2. Department of General Surgery, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, 12 Urumqi Road (M), Shanghai, 200040, People’s Republic of China

    Yuan-Yuan Zhao

  3. Department of Oncology, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, 270 Dong-An Road, Shanghai, 200032, People’s Republic of China

    Hui-Juan Ge, Wen-Tao Yang, Zhi-Ming Shao & Shuang Hao

  4. Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Fudan University, 270 Dong-An Road, Shanghai, 200032, People’s Republic of China

    Hui-Juan Ge & Wen-Tao Yang

  5. Institutes of Biomedical Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Zhi-Ming Shao

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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by YYZ, SH, and HJG. The first draft of the manuscript was written by YYZ and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zhi-Ming Shao or Shuang Hao.

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The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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This is a retrospective cohort study conducted under the approval of Institutional Review Board of Shanghai Cancer Center, Fudan University.

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Informed consent was obtained from all patients included in the study.

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Zhao, YY., Ge, HJ., Yang, WT. et al. Secretory breast carcinoma: clinicopathological features and prognosis of 52 patients. Breast Cancer Res Treat 203, 543–551 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-023-07153-1

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