Clinical-morphological characteristics of bilateral invasive ductal breast cancer

The study included 436 patients with stage T1-4N0-3M0 operable invasive ductal breast carcinoma, who were treated at the Cancer Research Institute (city of Tomsk) from 1983 to 2009. Bilateral carcinoma was diagnosed in 25 cases, out of them, there were 14 (56 %) with synchronous and 11 (44 %) with metachronic carcinomas. Histological examination assessed primary tumor tissues and all axillary lymph nodes. Receptor status of the tumor was determined using the standard immunogistochemical method. In the primary tumor, the morphological pattern of infiltrative component and state of the tumor stroma were studied. The morphological pattern of tumor nodes was found to be different between lateral and unilateral carcinomas. Bilateral tumors had less sizes and were characterized by more phenotypic variety in the pattern of infiltrative component and less pronounced inflammatory infiltration of the tumor stroma. Synchronous tumors were characterized by more detectable morpgological differences from unilateral as compared to metachronic tumors. In cases with synchronous bilateral carcinomas, more lymph nodes were involved in metastasis process. Recurrences were observed more frequently in patients with metachronic bilateral tumors.