Abstract

Secretory carcinoma is a very rare tumor of the breast and demonstrates distinctive pathologic features such as large amounts of intracellular and extracellular secretion and vacuolated or granular eosinophilic cytoplasm. We experienced a case of secretory carcinoma of the breast in a 57-year-old woman diagnosed with the fine needle aspiration and confirmed by breast conserving surgery. The cytologic smears were composed of numerous cohesive sheets or isolated tumor cells with intracytoplasmic vacuolization and extracellular lumens. The carcinoma cells were generally medium-sized, but showed mild size variation. Cytoplasm was moderate to abundant in amount and appeared vacuolated with occa sional eosinophillic, granular and lacy pattern, and was positive to PAS and D-PAS stain. Many signet ring-like cells with a single intracytoplasmic vacuole displacing the nucleus were scattered. Most of the nuclei appeared round with slight hyperchromasia, and had finely granular or opaque chromatin and small prominent nucleoli. The histologic findings showed solid or microcystic pattern of tumor cells separated by dense, hyalinized fibrous septa.

• Keywords: Breast neoplasms;Needle Biopsy