Skip to main content

Breast Cancer Pathology

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Oncoplastic and Reconstructive Breast Surgery
  • 2883 Accesses

Abstract

In recent years, the role of pathology in breast cancer has changed dramatically. Currently, it no longer has a purely diagnostic role, based exclusively on morphology. Pathologists are now asked to provide some information about prognostic and predictive factors, in other words about the risk assessment and the choice of the best treatment, according to Veronesi’s paradigm: “from maximum tolerable treatment to minimum effective treatment”. These changes can be summarized in this way: in the past we were dealing with “what to treat”, now we are dealing with “how to treat”, aiming at dealing with “whom to treat”.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Goldhirsch A, Wood WC, Coates AS et al (2011) Strategies for subtypes—dealing with the diversity of breast cancer: highlights of the St Gallen international expert consensus on the primary therapy of early breast cancer. Ann Oncol 22:1736–1747

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Riedl CC, Pfarl G, Memarsadeghi M et al (2005) Lesion miss rates and false-negative rates for 1115 consecutive cases of stereotactically guided needle-localized open breast biopsy with long-term follow-up. Radiology 237:847–853

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Niemann TH, Lucas JG, Marsh WL Jr (1996) To freeze or not to freeze. a comparison of methods for the handling of breast biopsies with no palpable abnormality. Am J Clin Pathol 106:225–228

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Noguchi M, Minami M, Earashi M et al (1995) Pathologic assessment of surgical margins on frozen and permanent sections in breast conserving surgery. Breast Cancer 2:27–33

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Morrow M (2009) Breast conservation and negative margins: how much is enough? Breast 18(Suppl 3):S84–S86

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Hammond ME, Hayes DF, Dowsett M et al (2010) American society of clinical oncology/college Of american pathologists guideline recommendations for immunohistochemical testing of estrogen and progesterone receptors in breast cancer. J Clin Oncol 28:2784–2795 Erratum in: (2010) J Clin Oncol 28:3543

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Wolff AC, Hammond ME, Schwartz JN et al (2007) American society of clinical oncology/college of American pathologists guideline recommendations for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 testing in breast cancer. J Clin Oncol 25:118–145

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Mirza AN, Mirza NQ, Vlastos G, Singletary SE (2002) Prognostic factors in node-negative breast cancer: A review of studies with sample size more than 200 and follow-up more than 5 years. Ann Surg 235:10–26

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Tavassoli FA, Devilee P (eds) (2003) Pathology and genetics of tumours of the breast and female genital organs. IARC Press, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon

    Google Scholar 

  10. Viale G (2005) Histopathology of primary breast cancer. Breast 14:487–492

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Veronesi U, Zurrida S, Goldhirsch A et al (2009) Breast cancer classification: time for a change. J Clin Oncol 15:2427–2428

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Perou CM, Sørlie T, Eisen MB et al (2000) Molecular portraits of human breast tumours. Nature 406:747–752

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Sorlie T, Perou CM, Tibshirani R et al (2001) Gene expression patterns of breast carcinomas distinguish tumour subclasses with clinical implications. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98:10869–10874

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Caliskan M, Gatti G, Sosnovskikh I et al (2008) Paget’s disease of the breast: the experience of the European institute of oncology and review of the literature. Breast Cancer Res Treat 112:513–521

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Bloom HJ, Richardson WW (1957) Histological grading and prognosis in breast cancer. A study of 1409 cases of which 359 have been followed for 15 years. Br J Cancer 11:359–377

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Elston CW, Ellis IO (1991) Pathological prognostic factors in breast cancer I. The value of histological grade in breast cancer: experience from a large study with long term follow-up. Histopathology 19:403–410

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Sloane JP, Amendoeira I, Apostolikas N et al (1999) Consistency achieved by 23 European pathologists from 12 countries in diagnosing breast disease and reporting prognostic features of carcinomas. European commission working group on breast screening pathology. Virchows Arch 434:3–10

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Veronesi U, Viale G, Paganelli G et al (2010) Sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer. Ten-year results of a randomized controlled study. Ann Surg 251:595–600

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Sobin LH, Gospodarowicz MK, Wittekind C (eds) (2009) TNM classification of malignant tumours, 7th edn. Wiley, Hoboken

    Google Scholar 

  20. Edge SB, Byrd DR, Compton CC, Fritz AG, Greene FL, Trotti A (eds) (2010) AJCC cancer staging manual, 7th edn. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  21. Arnone P, Zurrida S, Viale G et al (2010) The TNM classification of breast cancer: need for a change. Updates Surg 62:75–81

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Regan MM, Viale G, Mastropasqua MG et al (2006) Re-evaluating adjuvant breast cancer trials: assessing hormone receptor status by immunohistochemical versus extraction assays. J Natl Cancer Inst 98:1571–1581

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Sauter G, Lee J, Barlett JM et al (2009) (2009) Guidelines for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 testing: biologic and methodologic considerations. J Clin Oncol 27:1323–1333

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Perez EA, Roche PC, Jenkins RB et al (2002) HER2 testing in patients with breast cancer: poor correlation between weak positivity by immunohistochemistry and gene amplification by fluorescence in situ hybridization. Mayo Clin Proc 77:148–154

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Viale G, Giobbie-Hurder A, Regan MM et al (2008) Prognostic and predictive value of centrally reviewed Ki-67 labeling index in postmenopausal women With endocrine-responsive breast cancer: results From Breast International Group Trial 1–98 comparing adjuvant tamoxifen with Letrozole. J Cin Oncol 26:5569–5575

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Viale G, Regan MM, Mastropasqua MG et al (2008) Predictive value of tumor Ki-67 expression in two randomized trials of adjuvant chemoendocrine therapy for node-negative breast cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst 100:207–212

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Harris L, Fritsche H, Mennel R et al (2007) American Society of Clinical Oncology 2007 update of recommendations for the use of tumor markers in breast cancer. American Society of Clinical Oncology. J Clin Oncol 25:5287–5312

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Dowsett M, Nielsen T, A’Hern R et al (2011) Assessment of Ki67 in breast cancer: Recommendations form the International Ki67 in Breast Cancer Working Group. J Natl Cancer Inst 103:1656–1664

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mauro G. Mastropasqua .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer-Verlag Italia

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Mastropasqua, M.G. (2013). Breast Cancer Pathology. In: Urban, C., Rietjens, M. (eds) Oncoplastic and Reconstructive Breast Surgery. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2652-0_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2652-0_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Milano

  • Print ISBN: 978-88-470-2651-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-88-470-2652-0

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics