Clinicopathologic analysis of three cases with breast neuroendocrine carcinoma and review of the literature

Objective:To investigate the clinicopathologic characteristics of breast neuroendocrine carcinoma.Methods:The breast neuroendocrine carcinoma tissue of 3 cases were examined by histopathology and immunohistochemistry and relevant literatures were reviewed.Results:Three female cases with 1.5 to 4.5 cm of tumor sizes in diameter were 47 to 57 years old.The morphological types of these tumors included solid carcinoma in 2 cases and small cell carcinoma in 1 case.The synaptophysin expression of tumor cells of all cases were stained positive,but the positive expression of chromogranin,cytokeratin and NCAM1 of tumor cells of 2 cases were verified.Two cases were alive except one cases death from small cell carcinoma.Conclusions:The breast neuroendocrine carcinoma is a rare type of the breast carcinoma,whose diagnosis should mainly rely on the pathological and histological examination.