Importance of spicules on clinical staging of carcinoma of the breast.

Spiculated outgrowths around carcinomas of the breast were measured and assessed, both on roentgenograms and on microscopic slides in 104 spiculated carcinomas of the breast. On the basis of macroscopic and microscopic findings, the clinical stage of each tumor was corrected retrospectively. In the sense of an overestimation, 27.9 per cent, or an underestimation, 8.6 per cent, the clinical error reached 36.5 per cent of the true extent of the tumors. The relation of the histopathologic substrate of spicules of carcinoma of the breast upon metastases of axillary lymph nodes and clinical staging is significant.