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Mucinous carcinoma is a rare type of breast cancer in which the cancer cells float in pools of mucus they have made. It is usually hormone-receptor positive, slow-growing and less likely to reach the lymph nodes than ordinary breast cancer, so its outlook is good and it is treated like other hormone-driven breast cancer.
The WHO classification defines pure mucinous carcinoma by clusters of low-grade cells in lakes of extracellular mucin making up over 90 percent of the tumour, and separates it from mixed mucinous carcinoma and from mucinous cystadenocarcinoma (Tan 2020). In a Taiwanese series of 93 pure mucinous carcinomas compared with 2,674 infiltrating ductal carcinomas, hormone receptor expression was higher and grade, hormone receptor status and node involvement were all more favourable, confirming its less aggressive behaviour (World J Surg Oncol 2013).
How it differs from its parent: mucin makes the tumour soft and well-circumscribed, so it can look benign on imaging; nodal spread is uncommon in the pure form; and the mixed form (mucinous with ordinary no special type carcinoma) behaves like the ordinary component and is treated as such.
How common: about 3.5 percent of breast cancers in the Taiwanese series (World J Surg Oncol 2013).
Treatment: as HR-positive breast cancer, following the parent page, with endocrine therapy and usually no chemotherapy for the pure form; the sources read report treatment patterns, not trials in this type.
About 3.5 percent of newly diagnosed breast cancers in Taiwan (World J Surg Oncol 2013); typically a cancer of older women. No UK figure was found in the sources read.
Most cancers start in the ducts and drain first to the axillary nodes, which is why the armpit is checked and a sentinel node is sampled.
Same organ: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), Breast cancer (all types), HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer, HER2-positive breast cancer, Male breast cancer, Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), High-risk early HR-positive breast cancer, HR-positive metastatic breast cancer after CDK4/6 inhibitors, HER2-low and HER2-ultralow metastatic breast cancer, Early HER2-positive breast cancer, HER2-positive breast cancer with brain metastases, Early triple-negative breast cancer, Metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, Basal-like 1 triple-negative breast cancer (BL1), Basal-like 2 triple-negative breast cancer (BL2), Mesenchymal triple-negative breast cancer (M), Mesenchymal stem-like triple-negative breast cancer (MSL), Luminal androgen receptor triple-negative breast cancer (LAR), Immunomodulatory triple-negative breast cancer (IM), Metaplastic breast carcinoma, Carcinoma with medullary pattern (medullary breast cancer), Adenoid cystic carcinoma of the breast, Apocrine carcinoma of the breast, Secretory carcinoma of the breast, BRCA-associated triple-negative breast cancer, Inflammatory breast cancer, Paget disease of the nipple, Phyllodes tumour of the breast, Invasive lobular carcinoma of the breast, Invasive breast carcinoma of no special type (invasive ductal carcinoma), Tubular carcinoma of the breast, Papillary carcinomas of the breast (encapsulated, solid and invasive papillary), Invasive cribriform carcinoma of the breast, Invasive breast carcinoma with medullary pattern (medullary carcinoma), Invasive micropapillary carcinoma of the breast, Neuroendocrine neoplasms of the breast, Lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS)
Treated as HR-positive breast cancer: surgery, radiotherapy after breast conservation, endocrine therapy; chemotherapy for the mixed form as for no special type disease.
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Query for this cancer: (TITLE:"Mucinous carcinoma of the breast" OR ABSTRACT:"Mucinous carcinoma of the breast" OR TITLE:"Colloid carcinoma of the breast" OR ABSTRACT:"Colloid carcinoma of the breast" OR TITLE:"Mucinous breast cancer" OR ABSTRACT:"Mucinous breast cancer" OR TITLE:"Pure mucinous carcinoma" OR ABSTRACT:"Pure mucinous carcinoma") AND (treatment OR therapy OR trial OR survival OR diagnosis). Results are unfiltered search hits about Mucinous carcinoma of the breast, not a curated reading list.
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