Abstract

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to describe the sonographic features of pure mucinous carcinoma with micropapillary pattern (MUMPC) and compare them with conventional pure mucinous breast carcinoma without micropapillary architecture (cPMBC) and mixed mucinous breast carcinoma (MMBC).MethodsEighty-eight patients (17 MUMPCs, 43 cPMBCs, and 28 MMBCs) were included in the study. Sonographic features according to the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) lexicon for ultrasound (US) were recorded and analyzed for each patient. The age, sonographic lesion size, menstrual status, mass location, palpation, tenderness, and axillary lymph node metastasis (LNM) were also analyzed.ResultsMost of the MUMPCs showed an irregular shape (82.4%, 14/17), a parallel orientation (94.1%, 16/17), a non-circumscribed margin (88.2%, 15/17), and distal acoustic enhancement (88.2%, 15/17). Furthermore, MUMPC had mixed cystic and solid components (35.3%, 6/17) and hypoechoic (29.4%, 5/17) and isoechoic (35.3%, 6/17) structures, with calcification (29.4%, 5/17) and blood flow (41.2%, 7/17) within the tumor. The differences in sonographic features were not found between the MUMPC and cPMBC and between the MUMPC and MMBC. Moreover, there was no significant difference between the three groups based on age, menstrual status, mass location, palpation, and tenderness (p > 0.05). Similar axillary LNMs were observed between MUMPC and cPMBC (p > 0.05), but both MUMPC and cPMBC were statistically different from MMBC (p < 0.05), so as the lesion size.ConclusionsAt this particular stage, it is challenging to distinguish MUMPC from cPMBC and MMBC on ultrasound according to the BI-RADS-US lexicon.

Highlights

  • The aim of this study was to describe the sonographic features of pure mucinous carcinoma with micropapillary pattern (MUMPC) and compare them with conventional pure mucinous breast carcinoma without micropapillary architecture and mixed mucinous breast carcinoma (MMBC)

  • The pure mucinous breast carcinoma (PMBC) is associated with a better prognosis and a lower rate of axillary lymph node metastasis compared with other breast tumors [4,5,6,7]

  • One woman with cPMBC ever suffered from breast cancer before, while another one with cPMBC had non-mucinous breast carcinoma

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Summary

Introduction

The aim of this study was to describe the sonographic features of pure mucinous carcinoma with micropapillary pattern (MUMPC) and compare them with conventional pure mucinous breast carcinoma without micropapillary architecture (cPMBC) and mixed mucinous breast carcinoma (MMBC). Mucinous breast carcinoma (MBC) is a rare type of breast tumor characterized by large amounts of extracellular mucin It accounts for about 1–7% of all the breast neoplasms [1,2,3] and can be divided into two types: pure mucinous breast carcinoma (PMBC) without other malignant components and mixed mucinous breast carcinoma (MMBC) with non-mucinous component. We used ACR Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) lexicon [13] for ultrasound (US) to analyze the sonographic findings of MUMPC; the aim of this study was to characterize the sonographic features of MUMPC and to compare them with those from conventional PMBC without micropapillary architecture (cPMBC) and MMBC.

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