ecancermedicalscience

Case Report

Primary neuroendocrine breast cancer—an unusual occurrence

16 Mar 2023
Anjana Vinod, Ishika Mahajan, Aruni Ghose, Saraswathy Sreeram

Primary breast neuroendocrine neoplasms (BNENs) are a rare form of breast cancer, accounting for less than 0.1% of all breast malignancies. These neoplasms have a similar clinical presentation as conventional breast carcinomas, differing mainly in their histopathology and expression of neuroendocrine (NE) markers, chromogranin and synaptophysin. Owing to their rarity, current knowledge of these tumours comes mainly from corroborative case reports or retrospective case series. There is hence a lack of randomised data on the treatment of these entities and current protocol suggests similar treatment as that of conventional breast carcinomas. We report the case of a 48-year-old with a breast mass, which on further work-up was diagnosed as locally advanced carcinoma breast, that required a mastectomy and axillary node dissection on the same side and revealed NE differentiation on histopathological examination. Hence, immunohistochemical staining was indicated which confirmed NE differentiation. We discuss the current knowledge on incidence, demographics, diagnosis, histopathological and staining characteristics, prognostic factors and treatment modalities of BNENs.

Related Articles

Lisa Ximena Rodríguez Rojas, Liliana Doza Martínez, Jorge Andrés Olave Rodríguez, Sandra Eliana Murillo Rusynke, Paola Andrea Pérez Castellano, David Alexander Bolaños Beltrán, Helen Johana Ortiz Rojas, José Antonio Nastasi Catanese
Priti Singh, Chaithanya Leon, Simran Kaur, Atul Batra, Prashant Tayade, Muthukrishnan Suriya Prakash, Ratna Sharma
Arunah Chandran, Ishu Kataria, Kunal Oswal, Rita Isaac, Meritxell Mallafré-Larrosa, Sathishrajaa Palaniraja, Rajaraman Swaminathan, Rohit Rebello, Nandimandalam Venkata Vani, Bindhya Vijayan, Moni Kuriakose, Arnie Purushotham, Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan, Jerard Selvam, Richard Sullivan, Partha Basu