Invasive apocrine carcinoma of the breast: a long term follow-up study of 34 cases.

We have reviewed the morpho-functional criteria for infiltrating apocrine carcinomas of the breast and analysed long term follow-up of this entity. Thirty-four cases of pure apocrine carcinomas were retrieved from the files of the Dept. of Pathology, IGR, France, for the years 1955-1982. Each case was matched with two controls of other infiltrating ductal carcinomas according to the most important prognostic parameters: nodal status, histograde, anatomic tumor size, and patient age. No significant difference between the survival curves of the two groups was seen. Apocrine carcinoma, although possessing peculiar morphological, ultrastructural, biochemical, and immunohistochemical features to merit recognition as a separate histologic variant of breast cancer, by itself has no apparent clinical significance.