Secondary breast angiosarcoma and paclitaxel-dependent prolonged disease control: report of two cases and review of the literature.

Secondary breast angiosarcomas are a well-known entity generally characterized by a poor outcome, especially in patients with advanced disease. Among the drugs with demonstrated activity, taxane derivatives are one of the most effective histology-driven treatments against angiosarcomas. We report two cases of secondary breast angiosarcoma, both characterized by a very peculiar behavior towards paclitaxel. Both patients showed local recurrence of angiosarcoma after primary surgery, and they achieved complete remission following treatment with weekly paclitaxel. When a locoregional recurrence was observed as a result of a brief treatment interruption or a treatment delay, a new complete remission was rapidly achieved with the resumption of the drug, without evidence of any significant adverse effects.

Conservative surgery in patients with multifocal/multicentric breast cancer.

PURPOSE: Many physicians recommend mastectomy in case of multifocal (MF) or multicentric (MC) breast cancer due to a theoretical risk of poor local control with less extensive surgery. We retrospectively evaluate outcome of patients with MF/MC cancers who had breast conservation with specific attention on local control and predictive factors of recurrence. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Four hundred and seventy six patients with either MF (n = 421) or MC (n = 55) breast cancer, underwent breast-conserving surgery between 1997 and 2002 in a single institution. Median follow up was 73 months (range 11-118). RESULTS: Median age was 53 years (range 23-86). Invasive lobular carcinoma was found in 88 patients (18.5%) and mixed ductal-lobular cancer in 27 (5.7%) patients. Two hundred and sixty-seven patients (76.7%) had two identified tumor foci, 55 patients (15.3%) had three and 29 patients (8.0%) had four or more. Two hundred and sixty-one patients (55.3%) had nodal involvement. The 5-year cumulative incidence of local relapse was 5.1%. At the multivariate analysis, over-expression of HER2/neu and lack of both estrogen and progesterone receptors (HR: 3.2, 95% C.I. 1.01-10.0, and HR: 2.7, 95% C.I. 1.06-7.7, respectively) were associated with a higher ipsilateral breast cancer reappearance rate. Involvement of four or more lymph nodes and lack of estrogen and progesterone receptors (HR: 2.7, 95% C.I. 1.06-6.7, and HR: 4.7, 95% C.I. 2.1-10.4, respectively) were associated with poorer overall survival. CONCLUSIONS: In selected patients with MF/MC breast cancer, wide conservative surgery is not associated with poor local disease control and can be considered whenever acceptable cosmetic results can be achieved.

Paget's disease of the breast: the experience of the European Institute of Oncology and review of the literature.

BACKGROUND: Paget's disease of the breast is an uncommon presentation of breast malignancy, accounting for 1-3% of all the breast tumors and presents in different histopathologic patterns: in association with an underlying invasive or non invasive carcinoma, or without any underlying neoplasia. In the literature, different methods are used for the treatment. Mastectomy with or without axillary dissection has been considered as the standard treatment procedure for many years. Several studies have already shown that breast conservation with radiation therapy is an oncologically safe option. Regarding the axillary approach, several studies have documented the presence of positive sentinel lymph node even in Paget's disease alone. The objective of this study was to retrospectively analyze outcome of patients affected by Paget's breast disease and to define our institutional experience. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Between May 1996 and February 2003, 114 patients with confirmed Paget's disease of the breast were retrieved and underwent surgery at the European Institute of Oncology of Milan, Italy. The median age of the patients was 54 years at the time of the diagnosis. In our study, the histopathological examination of the operated specimen revealed one hundred seven patients with Paget's disease associated with an underlying invasive or non invasive carcinoma, and seven patients without underlying carcinoma. Patients underwent either conservative breast surgery or mastectomy, with or without sentinel lymph node biopsy and/or axillary surgery. Each patient was evaluated after surgery at a multidisciplinary meeting to selecting systemic therapy. RESULTS: Seven patients had "pure" Paget's disease of the breast and one hundred seven had the disease associated with an underlying carcinoma. As surgical techniques 71 mastectomies and 43 breast conserving surgeries have been performed. Complete axillary dissection was done in patients with clinically positive lymph node and/or sentinel lymph node biopsy positive. Sentinel lymph node biopsy was performed in nineteen patients with invasive component and five were positive and underwent axillary dissection. Eleven sentinel lymph node biopsies were done in patients with non invasive component and none of them was positive. Adjuvant systemic therapies were based on the final tumor, node and metastasis stage: thirty patients received adjuvant chemotherapy alone, fourteen received endocrine treatment alone, twenty-six patients were evaluated to receive both chemo and endocrine therapy. The median duration of follow up was 73 months and was updated in the last 6 months. Five patients developed local recurrence, one had regional recurrence, another two had loco-regional recurrences and fourteen had distant metastasis as a first event. Malignancy-related deaths were censored in the statistical analyses cancer for and due to another tumor in eleven patients. Additionally, deaths were not related to malignancy totally in thirteen patients. CONCLUSIONS: Screening examination and imaging techniques are fundamental. Breast conserving surgery combined with breast irradiation for patients with invasive and non invasive breast carcinoma has become the treatment of first choice. All surgical conservative approaches should include the complete nipple-areolar complex and margins of resected specimen free of tumor. Thanks to the evolution of the conservative approach, good cosmetic result can be obtained. To be informed about the axillary lymph node status and to avoid the patient to have a second surgical approach, sentinel lymph node biopsy should be performed.

The sentinel node biopsy under local anesthesia in breast cancer: advantages and problems, how the technique influenced the activity of a breast surgery department; update from the European Institute of Oncology with more than 1000 cases.

Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is a staging technique with a significant impact on patients' quality of life: the oncological effectiveness in a large number of patients affected by breast carcinoma has been already demonstrated, and the clinical research is now focusing on new indication for the biopsy and widespread adoption of the technique. At the European Institute of Oncology we are applying SLNB under local anesthesia: our aim is to improve the management of the disease with low costs for the structure and patients, and to improve patients' acceptance of breast cancer treatments. We are now discussing the impact of the SLNB under local anesthesia on the activity of a breast surgery department. We also present an update of our experience.

Synchronous bilateral breast cancer in men: a case report and review of the literature.

Breast carcinoma is a rare disease in men, and bilateral cases are extremely uncommon. The rarity of male breast carcinoma and the small number of large studies on this topic have made it necessary to extrapolate treatment standards and outcomes from those established for women. Between 1997 and 2007, 75 men with breast cancer were referred to our institute, and the bilateral case we present here was the only one we have observed since 1994. The goal of our work was to contribute to the available literature with this extremely unusual presentation of the disease.