Prognostic typing in breast cancer. Further investigation of a necropsy series compared with recent surgical specimens.

A comparison of material from necropsy and surgical series has shown that breast carcinoma of cytological types II and III are rare. The majority of cases are of type I. Of the latter, tumours in TNM stage I were not found in the necropsy series, while infiltrating duct carcinomas of type I TNM stage II were also absent. This suggests that the possibility of surgical cure may be better in type I duct carcinomas in stage II than with other histological types. Prolonged survival in contrast to surgical cure was related to type III tumours irrespective of TNM stage.