Breast Cancer: Current Research
Open Access

Review Article

Pleomorphic Lobular Carcinoma of the Breast: A Review of 35 Cases at a Single Institution

¹Radiation Oncology, University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston, Texas, USA

²Surgical Pathology, University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston Texas, USA

³Radiation Oncology, Indiana University Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

⁴Atlanta Radiation Oncology Associates, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Corresponding Author:

Sandra S Hatch
Radiation Oncology University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston Texas, USA
Tel: 1-409-772-6561
E-mail: shatch@utmb.edu

Received date: January 28, 2016 Accepted date: April 19, 2016 Published date: April 30, 2016

Citation: Sandra SH, Mahmoud AE, John AC, Michael W, Melissa J, et al. (2016) Pleomorphic Lobular Carcinoma of the Breast: A Review of 35 Cases at a Single Institution . Breast Can Curr Res 1:105. doi:10.4172/2572-4118.1000105

Copyright: © 2016 Sandra SH, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Objectives: Pleomorphic lobular carcinoma (PL) is an aggressive subtype of invasive lobular carcinoma. There are few case series reporting on this aggressive form of breast cancer. This report features a descriptive and survivorship comparison of a large case series of PL reviewed by a single breast pathologist.

Methods: From 1993-2010 we retrospectively reviewed 198 cases of invasive lobular carcinomas, 35 cases (34 patients with one patient presenting with 2 independent cancers) of PL and 163 cases of non-pleomorphic invasive lobular carcinoma (NPL). The pathology was reviewed by a single breast pathologist and classified as either PL or NPL according to WHO classification. Kaplan-Meier survivals were computed and compared with a log rank test using SPSS 18. Overall survival (OS) was computed from date of diagnosis. Progression free survival (PFS) until either local or metastatic failure was computed.

Results: Median follow-up was 59.5 months and 73 months, for NPL and PL respectively. Median age of diagnosis was 55 and 58.67 for PL and NPL groups. Of the NPL group, 75.5% were post-menopausal opposed to 67.6% in PL group. PL cases were ER positive 87.1% vs. 90.1% of the NPL cases. Her-2/neu status was known in nearly 50% of cases with 17 positive NPL and 5 positive PL. Clinical stage at presentation was stage IIB or less in 67.6% of the PL and 80.1% of the NPL. Six presented (17.6%) with metastatic disease in the PL group and 12 (7.7%) in the NPL group. None of the descriptive comparisons were significantly different by c2 analyses. PFS at 5 years was 30% and 21% in PL and NPL, respectively (p=0.73). OS at 5 years was 68.5% for PL and 83.9% for NPL (p=0.031).

Conclusions: PL patients showed a statistically significant decreased OS, but no significant difference in PFS, at 5 years from diagnosis.

Keywords