Malignant adnexal tumor of the skin on breast: A case report of apocrine carcinoma

INTRODUCTION

Malignant adnexal tumors of the skin (MATS) are a group of rare and varied tumors that lack standardized guidelines for their management. Apocrine carcinoma (AC) is a highly uncommon form of breast malignancy, contributing to less than 1 % of all female invasive breast carcinomas. AC has a similar microscopic growth pattern to invasive ductal carcinoma, which can result in early misdiagnosis.

PRESENTATION OF CASE

This report presents a case of a 67-year-old female with a lump in the superior lateral quadrant of her left breast for six years. Surgical therapy was performed with wide excision due to clinical operability, no significant involvement of the axillary lymph nodes, and without metatasis. During the operation, Wide excision of 1-2 cm free margin according to standard and local reconstruction flaps were performed, with berry packing for the identified lymph nodes.

DISCUSSION

The tumor was ER and PR negative, so hormonal treatment would be ineffective, assuming that this is an apocrine carcinoma of the breast. A metastatic work up was already done, and no metastasis was found. A mastectomy would appear to be a viable option.

CONCLUSION

It is important to perform a clinical reevaluation to provide optimal treatment for breast malignancy. Misdiagnosis can occur early. In this case, a surgical procedure involving wide excision was performed, and as of now, the patient has not reported any recurrence.

Evaluation of immunohistopathological profile of tubular and solid canine mammary carcinomas

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, but the incidence of mammary carcinoma in female dogs is even higher than in humans. These two tumors have similarities that can be seen by its biological behavior, molecular genetic alterations, and histology. This suggest that female dogs can be an excellent model for preclinical oncological studies. And the mammary carcinoma most frequently found in this species is the tubular and solid carcinomas. The extracellular matrix (ECM) has an important role in the progression of these tumors. Because of that we proposed to evaluate the ECM components of these carcinomas through histology with specific stains such as Masson's Trichrome, Picrosirius Red and the technique of scanning electron microscopy. With that, we found the presence of collagen fibers in the tubular carcinoma and around its parenchyma. On the other hand, the solid carcinoma presented collagen fibers throughout the parenchyma and around each tumor cell. With the transmission electron microscopy, we observed the presence of mitochondrias and rough endoplasmic reticulum in both tumors. And finally, we evaluated the expression of proteins through the immunohistochemistry, in which we found a high expression of VEGF, PCNA, CK-18 and vimentin in solid carcinoma, and a positive mark in the tubular and solid carcinoma for collagen I, III and fibronectin. Thus, we demonstrated some differences in the ECM of these mammary carcinomas, allowing a better understanding of its histological characteristics, and these data may contribute to future studies about therapies focused on tumors ECM.