Abstract
A 68-year-old female visited the hospital because of a left breast tumor and nipple discharge. Palpation of the breast revealed a tumor 5×4 cm in size in the upper outer quadrant of the left breast with a lot of purulent discharge from the left nipple. Mammography showed a mass with ill-defined margins and ultrasonography showed an irregular, heterogeneous low echoic area of about 4 cm in diameter in the upper outer quadrant of the left breast. Thermography showed that a mass was surrounded with irregular vascular hyperthermia in the left breast. A lactic cytological examination was false positive. Lactic CEA value was as low as 104 ng/ml. These finding indicates a breast cancer, and biopsy was performed. From pathological exploration the tumor was diagnosed as non-invasive apocrine carcinoma of the breast. Radical mastectomy was performed in addition.
The apocrine carcinoma of the breast is pathologically classified into invasive carcinoma, a special type in the general rules for he breast cancer study, and non-invasive apocrine carcinoma of the breast pathologically can not exist in the rules. Here we describe a very rare case which can not but be diagnosed as non-invasive apocrine carcinoma of the breast, which reveals non-invasive ductal carcinoma with intensive apocrine metaplasia, with reference to the literature.
