2016 Volume 55 Issue 6 Pages 382-387
Background : The disease formerly known as primary neuroendocrine tumor of the breast is currently classified according to the recent World Health Organization (WHO) classification system as “carcinoma with neuroendocrine features” (CNF). Herein, we report the cytological findings of 4 cases of CNF.
Cases : All the patients were women, three of whom were in the eighth decade of life and one in the fifth. The initial symptoms were palpable tumor and brown-colored nipple discharge. Cytological specimens were obtained by fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC). The cytological findings in case 1 were similar to those of small cell carcinoma derived from the lung and other organs. On the basis of the findings, the diagnosis of CNF, neuroendocrine carcinoma poorly differentiated/small cell carcinoma (NEC) was successfully made. On the other hand, cases 2-4 showed diverse cytological findings and we failed to diagnosis CNF prior to histological examination. Immnohistochemically, more than 50% of the tumor cells were positive for neuroendocrine markars in all cases, which led to a conclusive diagnosis of CNF in all the cases.
Conclusion : We encountered 4 cases of CNF of the breast in which the cytological findings were available prior to histological examination. In cases with cytological findings resembling those of NEC, the histological diagnosis can be predicted. However, when the cytology shows varied findings, as in cases 2-4, prediction of the histology might be difficult.
