Multicentric Breast Carcinoma: Evaluation of Clinicopathological and Immunohistochemical Characteristics

Multicentric breast carcinomas not diagnosed clinically, were examined by serial step-cut sectioning of the whole breast, and multicentric carcinoma cases were compared with single carcinoma cases with regard to histological and clinicopathological findings. In 7(3.7%) out of 187 surgically resected breasts, latent carcinomas apart from the main carcinoma were noted. The size of the latent carcinoma varied from 0.2 to 5 cm in diameter. The histological type was noninvasive ductal carcinoma in six cases and invasive ductal carcinoma in one case. When the main carcinoma was small in size (less than 2.5 cm in diameter), and showed papillotubular carcinoma as the histological type or had estrogen receptor (ER) by the dextran-coated charcoal (DCC) method, the incidence of latent carcinoma was high. In 5 of 6 cases with latent carcinoma examined by immunohistochemistry, latent carcinomas showed expression of ER. Concerning Ki-67, proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and p53 protein, there was no significant difference between the main and latent carcinomas, as well as with other clinicopathological factors.