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5 slides generated from the cancer page, with a quiz from the open benchmark and speaker notes that cite the sources. Arrow keys move between slides; Print gives one slide per page.
Tubular carcinoma is a rare, slow-growing type of breast cancer made of small, well-formed tubes, usually found small on a screening mammogram. Its outlook is excellent, better even than other grade 1 breast cancers, and it is treated with surgery, radiotherapy where the breast is kept, and hormone therapy.
The WHO classification defines tubular carcinoma by well-formed open tubules with a single layer of low-grade cells making up over 90 percent of the tumour (Tan 2020). In the Nottingham series of 2,608 carcinomas, the 102 tubular carcinomas, compared with 212 grade 1 ductal carcinomas, were more often detected by screening, smaller, and less often showed lymphovascular invasion; they had longer disease-free and breast cancer-specific survival, and no patient developed distant metastasis or died of the disease without an intervening recurrence of a different histological type (Rakha 2010). In an earlier series of 44 patients, nodes were involved in 4 of 32 examined (13 percent), tumours under 15 mm had no nodal involvement, ductal carcinoma in situ accompanied 52 percent, second breast cancers developed in 16 percent and overall mortality was 2 percent (Breast Journal 2003).
How it differs from its parent: it is the special type with the best prognosis, hormone-receptor positive and HER2-negative (luminal A), and its main risk is a second, different breast cancer rather than relapse of the tubular tumour (Rakha 2010).
| Setting | Approach | Guideline |
|---|---|---|
| All stages | Treated as HR-positive breast cancer with the least treatment the parent page allows: surgery, radiotherapy after breast conservation, endocrine therapy; chemotherapy rarely. | not mapped |