Experience with Intracystic Papillary Carcinoma of the Breast at a Single Institute in Korea

Abstract

Intracystic papillary carcinoma (IPC) of the breast is a rare entity, which can be associated with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) or an invasive carcinoma. There have been only limited reports describing IPC in Korea and the incidence among breast cancer cases in Korea has not yet been report- ed. From a database of 7,109 breast cancer cases treated surgically at Samsung Medical Center, we could only identify four IPC cases (0.056%). We also found that there are some differences between the clinicopathological characteristics of our cases and the alleged characteristics of IPC as reported from Western countries, such as a relatively young age of onset, small tumor size and various expression levels of hor- monal receptors. We suspect this very low incidence may be caused by a true rarity of IPC in women in Korea or may be due to a lack of clinical interest for IPC. Upon presentation of our experience with IPC, we suggest the diagnosis for this rare disease entity needs to be reappraised.