Abstract
Male breast cancer (MBC) is relatively rare, accounting for less than 1 % of all breast cancers in 2010 in the UK (Breast Cancer Incidence Statistics, 2013), however there is some evidence that the incidence rate may be on the rise (Speirs and Shaaban in Breast Cancer Res Treat 115:429–430, 2009). Although a number of individual case reports and small case series have been published, large studies into MBC are few and far between, reflecting the scarcity of the disease. Such studies have relied on multicentre collaboration to obtain sizeable cohorts (Kornegoor in Histopathology 61:1145–1155, 2012; Nilsson in Acta Oncol 52:102–109, 2013; Ottini in Breast Cancer Res Treat 134:411–418, 2012; Shaaban in Breast Cancer Res Treat 133:949–958, 2012). At time of writing there are no clear molecular pathology readouts that are required to tailor therapy for MBC in a way they differs significantly from female breast cancer (FBC). This piece summarises the state of play with regards to the molecular pathology of MBC.
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Millican-Slater, R.A., Speirs, V., Hughes, T.A., Hanby, A.M. (2015). The Molecular Pathology of Male Breast Cancer. In: Khan, A., Ellis, I., Hanby, A., Cosar, E., Rakha, E., Kandil, D. (eds) Precision Molecular Pathology of Breast Cancer. Molecular Pathology Library, vol 10. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2886-6_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2886-6_18
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