# Invasive breast carcinoma of no special type (invasive ductal carcinoma)

Source: https://onco.cc/cancers/invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type/  
OnCo record `invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type` (Cancer). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Invasive carcinoma of no special type, still widely called invasive ductal carcinoma, is the ordinary form of breast cancer and by far the most common. The name means the tumour has no special pattern that would put it in one of the rarer types; everything on the main breast cancer page and its receptor subpages is written about this type unless it says otherwise.

## Summary

The WHO classification uses invasive breast carcinoma of no special type for the large group of adenocarcinomas that cannot be classified as a special histological type; the 2019 edition keeps the term, treats the former medullary, oncocytic, lipid-rich, glycogen-rich, sebaceous and pleomorphic carcinomas as patterns within it, and grades it by the Nottingham system (Tan 2020). It is then divided clinically by oestrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and HER2 status and, in early disease, by genomic assays such as Oncotype DX, which is how the corpus's HR-positive, HER2-positive and triple-negative pages and their subpages are organised.

How it differs from its parent: it is not a subtype so much as the default; the special types on the sibling pages (lobular, tubular, mucinous, cribriform, papillary, secretory, adenoid cystic, apocrine, micropapillary, metaplastic, neuroendocrine) are defined against it and several carry a better or worse prognosis than grade-matched no special type disease.

How common: the most common type of breast cancer (Cancer Research UK); Cancer Research UK gives no percentage and this page does not estimate one.

Treatment: entirely as the parent and its receptor pages describe (surgery, radiotherapy, endocrine therapy, chemotherapy, HER2-directed therapy and immunotherapy by receptor status and stage).

## Fields

- Kind: Cancer
- Last checked: 2026-09-25
- Also known as: Invasive ductal carcinoma; IDC; Invasive carcinoma of no special type; NST; Infiltrating ductal carcinoma; Invasive ductal carcinoma not otherwise specified; Invasive breast cancer; ordinary breast cancer; usual type breast cancer; no special type; NST breast cancer; IDC NST
- Tags: subtype-page; wave4; breast
- Group: breast
- Burden: The most common type of breast cancer (Cancer Research UK); in the Cancer Genome Atlas breast series, 490 of 817 tumours were ductal (Ciriello 2015).
- Subtypes: Invasive carcinoma of no special type, HR-positive and HER2-negative (luminal); Invasive carcinoma of no special type, HER2-positive; Invasive carcinoma of no special type, triple-negative (basal-like); Invasive carcinoma of no special type with medullary pattern (own page); Oncocytic, lipid-rich, glycogen-rich and sebaceous patterns (rare, within no special type)
- Biomarkers: Oestrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and HER2; Nottingham grade; Ki-67 and genomic assays (Oncotype DX and others) in early HR-positive disease

## Sections of this record

The page is a hub with ten sections in reading order; large sections have their own page. The same plan as JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/cancers/invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type/sections.json

- Overview (on the hub): The TL;DR, the family this cancer belongs to, the organ, who gets it and what the state of the art is. https://onco.cc/cancers/invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type/#overview
- Types and stages (on the hub): Anatomy, the subtypes and how they differ, how it is staged, and where advanced disease spreads. https://onco.cc/cancers/invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type/#what-it-is [5 subtypes]
- Symptoms and diagnosis (on the hub): How this cancer shows itself, how the diagnosis is confirmed, and the biomarkers clinicians test for. https://onco.cc/cancers/invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type/#finding-it [3 biomarkers]
- Treatment (on the hub): The standard of care by setting, the medicines, surgery and radiotherapy named in it, and the regimens behind them. https://onco.cc/cancers/invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type/#treating-it [1 setting]
- Trials and papers (on the hub): Trials recruiting now, the landmark trials, the trials held by this cancer's subtypes, the key papers and what they mean, the latest literature, and the milestones year by year. https://onco.cc/cancers/invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type/#evidence
- Biology and targets (on the hub): The molecular landscape: the targets and how often each appears, the pathways, the mechanics stages and the preclinical models. https://onco.cc/cancers/invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type/#science
- Countries and centres (own page): Cases by country, the UK and NHS pathway and other country lenses, the expert centres with trials on record, and the centres named on this cancer's subtypes. https://onco.cc/cancers/invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type/where-you-are/ [16 UK centres]
- Decisions and support (on the hub): The decisions you may face, the aids that walk through them, the warnings on record, the first sixty days and the questions to ask. https://onco.cc/cancers/invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type/#living-with-it [8 questions]
- Pipeline and open problems (own page): Everything in development, the medicines held by this cancer's subtypes, the open problems and what is being done about them, the roadmaps, and what changed on this record. https://onco.cc/cancers/invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type/coming/ [1 medicine]
- Data (own page): Every connected record, the notes, the JSON, Markdown and RDF twins, and where the record came from and when it was checked. https://onco.cc/cancers/invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type/data/ [11 connected records, 1 note]

## Standard of care

- All stages: Treated as the parent's receptor pages describe. ([Breast cancer (all types)](https://onco.cc/cancers/breast-cancer/), [HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/breast-hr-positive/), [HER2-positive breast cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/breast-her2-positive/), [Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)](https://onco.cc/cancers/tnbc/), [Oncotype DX](https://onco.cc/drugs/oncotype-dx/))

## Notes

- This is the default, and the default is where the receptor result takes over. Invasive carcinoma of no special type is defined by not having a special pattern, so once a report says no special type, or invasive ductal carcinoma, everything that follows is decided by the grade, the stage and the receptors rather than by the type. The sixth edition of the WHO classification (April 2026) moves two groups into this category that used not to be here: mucinous carcinomas that are high grade, oestrogen receptor negative or HER2 positive become carcinoma of no special type with mucin production, and the unified neuroendocrine model the fifth edition applied to the breast is abandoned, with routine neuroendocrine staining of ordinary carcinoma no longer recommended.

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_carcinoma_of_no_special_type
- Cancer Research UK: types of breast cancer: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/breast-cancer/types
- NCI PDQ: breast cancer treatment: https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/treatment
- Tan 2020, Histopathology: the 2019 WHO classification of tumours of the breast: https://doi.org/10.1111/his.14091
- Ciriello 2015, Cell: comprehensive molecular portraits of invasive lobular breast cancer (TCGA): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2015.09.033
- Quinn et al., Histopathology 2026;89(2):199 to 218: World Health Organization classification of tumours of the breast, 6th edition 2026: https://doi.org/10.1111/his.70149
- Royal College of Pathologists G148: dataset for histopathological reporting of breast disease in surgical excision specimens of breast cancer, version 3, November 2024 (full review due November 2026): https://www.rcpath.org/resourceLibrary/g148-dataset-for-histopathological-reporting-of-breast-disease-in-surgical-excision-specimens-of-breast-cancer.html

## Connected records

- cancers: [Breast cancer (all types)](https://onco.cc/cancers/breast-cancer/), [Carcinoma with medullary pattern (medullary breast cancer)](https://onco.cc/cancers/medullary-pattern-breast-carcinoma/), [Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS)](https://onco.cc/cancers/ductal-carcinoma-in-situ/), [HER2-positive breast cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/breast-her2-positive/), [HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/breast-hr-positive/), [Invasive lobular carcinoma of the breast](https://onco.cc/cancers/invasive-lobular-carcinoma/), [Invasive micropapillary carcinoma of the breast](https://onco.cc/cancers/invasive-micropapillary-carcinoma-breast/), [Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)](https://onco.cc/cancers/tnbc/)
- drugs: [Oncotype DX](https://onco.cc/drugs/oncotype-dx/)
- terms: [Ducts, lobules and the terminal duct lobular unit](https://onco.cc/terms/terminal-duct-lobular-unit/), [Grade, stage and receptor status: three different things on one breast report](https://onco.cc/terms/grade-stage-receptor-breast/), [Nottingham grade (breast cancer grade 1, 2 and 3)](https://onco.cc/terms/nottingham-grade/), [Nottingham Prognostic Index (NPI), and PREDICT](https://onco.cc/terms/nottingham-prognostic-index/), [The WHO classification of breast tumours, and what the 6th edition changed](https://onco.cc/terms/who-breast-classification/), [Tumour size on a breast report, and why it differs from the scan](https://onco.cc/terms/breast-tumour-size-on-the-report/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/invasive-breast-carcinoma-no-special-type.json