Mucocele-like Lesions and Mucinous Carcinoma of the Breast

Abstract

Clinical and pathologic features of 12 examples of so-called mucocele-like lesion, mucocele-like tumor, or intraductal carcinoma with mucous leakage are recounted. Similar alterations were noted in almost one half of the pure mucinous cancers and one fifth of mixed-mucinous cancers examined. This suggests that these lesions, particularly those characterized by mucinous intraductal cancer, may represent a histogenetic spec trum with overt mucinous cancers, even though all patients in this and other studies have remained disease-free for varying periods of observation. Although overall sur vival for pure mucinous cancers was only 58% at 15 years, it was still better than that (33%) found for women of the same cohort with not otherwise specified carcinomas. There are no contraindications to treat all mammary mucinous lesions conservatively. Int J Surg Pathol 1(4):213-220, 1994