[Histological classification of malignant breast neoplasms. Recent concepts]

The recent histological classifications of breast malignant epithelial tumours place increased emphasis on several concepts: in situ carcinoma, difference of lobular carcinoma from other forms of breast cancer and histological factors of prognosis. The authors propose to discriminate: non infiltrating duct carcinoma (intraductal carcinoma); lobular carcinoma (in situ and infiltrating); infiltrating duct carcinoma in their usual form (80 p. 100 about of all breast carcinoma); among them, histological types with a less ominous prognosis, although relatively rare, are stressed (infiltrating papillary and comedo-carcinomas, tubular carcinoma, medullary carcinoma, colloid carcinoma, cylindroma, certain metaplastic variants, Paget's disease of the nipple); some features in unusual hosts are related. They mention the criteria of the Scarff and Bloom's "grading" and its importance from the point of view of prognosis, mainly for the usual infiltrating forms. Other malignant tumours of the breast (malignant cystosarcoma phyllodes, sarcomas, mammary metastases) are more scarcely seen (I p. 100 of the mammary neoplasms): their classification is succinctly recalled.