Metastatic Invasive Lobular Carcinoma of Bilateral Breasts Presenting with an Abdominal Mass

Archives of Breast Cancer

article

Sze Yuen Lee¹  Yamunadevi Arunasalam¹  Mathias Premanand Ponniah²  Noor Farrahin Sazale²  Norly Salleh²  Haryati Husin³ 

[1] Department of Radiology, Hospital Segamat;Department of Surgery, Hospital Segamat;Department of Pathology, Hospital Pakar Sultanah Fatimah Muar

关键词: Lobular carcinoma;    metastatic breast carcinoma;    bilateral breast carcinoma;    breast neoplasms.;   

DOI  :  10.32768/abc.202310186-92

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Kaviani Breast Disease Institute

【 摘 要 】

Background: Breast cancer remains the most frequent malignancy in women, with the two most common histological subtypes of breast cancer being the invasive ductal carcinomas (IDC) and invasive lobular carcinomas (ILC). The most common sites of breast cancer metastases are the liver, lung, pleura, brain and bone. Gastrointestinal, peritoneal, gynaecological and renal metastases are less common, often masquerading as primary malignancies and causing diagnostic confusion, mostly occurring in ILC as compared to IDC. Case Presentation: We report a case of a young woman presenting with an enlarging abdominal mass which was suspicious of a primary abdominal malignancy. Endoscopy and gastric biopsy revealed poorly differentiated carcinoma. On the top-most slices of her abdominal CT, bilateral enhancing breast lesions were detected, suspicious of metastases. Ultrasound and biopsy done for the breast lesions showed bilateral ILCs. Further staining of the gastric biopsy specimen confirmed the final diagnosis of gastric metastases from bilateral breast ILCs rather than a primary gastric tumour with breast metastases. Conclusion: This case highlights how breast cancer metastases to the GI tract may mimic primary GI cancers as well as the importance of breast examination, family history, radiological and pathological examination in detecting the breast origin of advanced carcinomas. Awareness of the different patterns of metastatic spread of ILC and IDC is also important due to the infiltrating nature and non-specific imaging findings of these tumours, requiring a high index of suspicion from the surgeons, oncologists, radiologists and pathologists.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC