Histopathologic profile of mastectomy specimens of operable breast cancer cases

Adequate description of histopathologic profile of mastectomy specimens offers a better prognostic prediction of individual breast cancer patient. Such a data hasn’t been reported so far from Indonesian breast cancer cases, due to the fact that the majority of admitted cases were already in unoperable late stage. In this report, we present the extensive histopathologic profile of mastectomy specimen from cancer cases included in Indonesia - Japan Joint Study on Etiology and Clinicopathology of Breast Cancer. Four to 6 H &E slides were reviewed from each cases; all data about histopathological type, lymphocytic infiltration, blood and lymph vessels invasion, fat, muscle and skin invasion and lymph node involvement were recorded. Five years survival data were collected. Only 70 out of 107 operable cases were available for a complete histopathological review and 20 cases were evaluated for their 5 years survival data. Most of the patients were of ductal invasive type (79.9%); 2.8% ductal in situ and the rest were of the special types. Scirrhous subtype predominated the ductal invasive type (43.3%). Fifty cases showed lymphocytic infiltration. Vascular invasion were found only in 4 cases, lymph vessel invasion in 16 cases. More than half cases showed fat invasion (36 cases), muscle invasion in 3 cases and skin invasion in 1 case. Among 48 cases with dissected lymph node, 28 showed metastasis. Age of patients and lymphocytic infiltration were significant encountered in the evaluation of survival data. There was a tendency for a decreasing age among group alive without disease, alive with disease and deceased. Almost all of cases who were alive without disease showed lymphocytic infiltration which were mostly moderate to severe; while 6 cases who were alive with disease mostly showed mild infiltration. One case who was deceased has no lymphocytic infiltration. It is recommended to study further with the help of ancillary techniques to get more accurate information about the histopathologic profile.