Elastosis in neoplastic and non-neoplastic tissues from patients with mammary carcinoma

We studied a series of 585 patients with non-invasive or invasive ductal carcinoma in an attempt to assess the significance of elastosis. Elastosis in the neoplasm was recognized in 60% of the 549 patients with invasive ductal carcinoma. The grade of elastosis was correlated with both the histologic grade of differentiation and the 5-year survival rate. The incidence of elastosis, however, was 17% in the 36 patients with non-invasive ductal carcinoma and 38% in the 21 with invasive ductal carcinoma with a predominant intraductal component. The increased elastic tissue may therefore be influenced by the stromal infiltration of cancer cells. Mastectomy specimens from another series of 100 patients with mammary carcinoma were examined with regard to the volume of elastic tissue. Increased periductal elastic fibers were also identified in the non-neoplastic tissue, but the volume density was far less than in the neoplasm. A significant correlation was found between the increased amount of periductal elastic fibers in the non-neoplastic tissue, periductal elastosis of the neoplasm and an increase in parity. We propose that cancer cells in mammary carcinoma exert an inductive effect on mesenchymal cells for the synthesis of elastic material, under the basic condition of an increased amount of elastic fibers with an increase in parity.