Papillary carcinoma of breast: An institutional overview of a rare histopathologic type

Papillary carcinoma of the breast is a rare malignant tumor, constituting 1%-2% of all breast carcinomas in women. We studied a total of 6 cases of papillary cancer breast of which five were in female patients, and one was a male patient. Three were invasive papillary carcinoma while one was encapsulated papillary carcinoma without invasion, one was encapsulated papillary carcinoma with invasion and one was a solid type of papillary carcinoma. The median age of the patients was 45.5 years. All the tumors except one were seen in the left breast. Grossly, the size of the tumors ranged from 2 cm × 2 cm × 1.5 cm to as large as 6 cm × 10 cm × 4 cm. Three of the cases had positive axillary nodes. To conclude, papillary carcinoma is a rare tumor with a better prognosis as compared to Infiltrating duct carcinoma breast, and hence, it is important to be aware of the different subtypes and diagnostic pitfalls of this tumor to correctly diagnose it.