Lobular breast cancer
Less frequent and more favorable. Lobular breast cancer is amenable to hormone therapy, which improves the prognosis for survival: although it is a carcinoma, the chances of recovery are much greater.
Lobular breast cancer
The main anatomical structure of the glandular tissue of the breast is the milk lobule. This is where breast milk is produced in a lactating woman. Secreting cells are sensitive to hormonal influences, changes during pregnancy, and lactation. If for certain reasons, a malignant transformation occurs in this tissue, then lobular breast cancer almost always responds to hormonal treatment. It occurs much less frequently than the ductal variant of oncology in the breast – no more than 15%. There are the following typical options:
Lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS)
- Infiltrative lobular cancer;
- Mixed option (lobular-ductal).
There are rare morphological forms that relate to prognostically unfavorable histological types of tumors.
Yes, it happens rarely, and the prognosis seems to be favorable. Nevertheless, lobular breast cancer is a malignant tumor that it would be desirable to detect at the LCIS stage. And treat with the full amount of anticancer therapy required.
Features of the tumor
Comparatively young. The pre-invasive variant of the tumor (cancer in situ) in most cases is detected in women aged 35 to 50 years. Infiltrative lobular breast cancer is more common at 55-65 years of age. The main features of the tumor:
- Carcinoma is hidden deep in glandular tissues (intraorgan location), which complicates early diagnosis (up to 20% of false-negative mammography results);
- Distribution in the mammary gland and the formation of additional tumor foci (multicentricity – multiple nodules of a malignant neoplasm);
- Frequently detected lesion of both mammary glands (according to statistics, the bilateral tumor is detected in 13-60% of cases);
- Almost always hormone sensitivity of tumor tissues (presence of receptors for estrogens and gestagens – ER + / PR +);
- Most often, the epidermal growth factor is negative (HER2-);
- Low or medium grade of malignancy due to high differentiation of tumor tissues;
- High sensitivity to hormone therapy, and low – to chemotherapy.
If detected on time (ideally at the pre-invasive stage), then you can be guaranteed to cure. But, unfortunately, lobular breast cancer is most often found at 3-4 stages of tumor growth. However, even in the worst-case scenario, the forecast is still more favorable than intriple negative breast cancer orbasal cell ductal carcinoma (distant metastases from a lobular tumor are also sensitive to hormonal drugs).
