Malignant granular cell tumor of the breast: case report and literature review

Granular cell tumors (GCTs) are uncommon soft tissue tumors that mostly occur in patients between 40 and 60 years of age and can occur at various body sites. Malignant granular cell tumors (MGCTs) comprise less than 2 % of GCTs and are mostly found on the lower extremities, especially the thighs. Th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Breast cancer (Tokyo, Japan) Japan), 2015-05, Vol.22 (3), p.317-323
Main Authors: Akahane, Kazuhisa, Kato, Kazuo, Ogiso, Seiji, Sakaguchi, Kenji, Hashimoto, Mizuo, Ishikawa, Akira, Kato, Takehiro, Fuwa, Yoshitaka, Takahashi, Ayako, Kobayashi, Kenji
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Breast cancer
Breast Neoplasms - complications
Breast Neoplasms - pathology
Breast Neoplasms - surgery
Cancer Research
Case Report
Diagnosis
Fatal Outcome
Female
Granular Cell Tumor - complications
Granular Cell Tumor - pathology
Granular Cell Tumor - surgery
Humans
Lymph Node Excision
Mastectomy
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Metastasis
Neoplasm Metastasis
Neoplasm Staging
Oncology
Surgery
Surgical Oncology
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Summary:Granular cell tumors (GCTs) are uncommon soft tissue tumors that mostly occur in patients between 40 and 60 years of age and can occur at various body sites. Malignant granular cell tumors (MGCTs) comprise less than 2 % of GCTs and are mostly found on the lower extremities, especially the thighs. These tumors grow more rapidly than benign GCTs, and most importantly, they can metastasize. We describe an MGCT that presented as a right breast mass in a 79-year-old Japanese woman. Local excision was performed for the primary tumor, which was diagnosed as an atypical GCT, but 15 months later, the tumor recurred at the same site. Thereafter, right mastectomy with axillary lymph node dissection was performed. Metastatic disease was identified in 2 of 12 lymph nodes. The pathological examination revealed that the tumor had progressed to an MGCT after recurrence. Multiple liver, lung and bone metastases were revealed 4 months after the second surgery, and the patient died 34 months after the primary surgery. Our findings highlighted the difficulty in diagnosing MGCTs using histological features alone and suggested the usefulness of Ki67 values. A tumor with a high level of Ki67 should be treated as malignant, even if the tumor has few pathological features of malignancy.
ISSN:1340-6868
1880-4233
DOI:10.1007/s12282-012-0362-1