Benign breast lesions that mimic malignancy

Vanda F Torous; Stuart J Schnitt; Laura C Collins

doi:10.1016/j.pathol.2016.12.002

Benign breast lesions that mimic malignancy

Pathology. 2017 Feb;49(2):181-196. doi: 10.1016/j.pathol.2016.12.002. Epub 2017 Jan 6.

Authors

Vanda F Torous¹, Stuart J Schnitt¹, Laura C Collins²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
² Department of Pathology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States. Electronic address: [email protected].

PMID: 28069257
DOI: 10.1016/j.pathol.2016.12.002

Abstract

Many benign and reactive lesions of the breast show morphological overlap with malignant lesions. These benign mimics of malignancy often present diagnostic challenges to even the most experienced pathologists. This review focuses on several benign lesions of the breast that mimic malignant entities. For each of these lesions, we describe the key morphological and immunohistochemical features, potential diagnostic pitfalls, and our approach to arriving at the correct diagnosis.

Keywords: Benign breast lesions; Toker cells; benign lymph node inclusions; collagenous spherulosis; displaced epithelium; epithelioid myofibroblastoma; granular cell tumour; mucocele-like lesion.

MeSH terms

Animals
Breast / pathology*
Breast Neoplasms / diagnosis*
Breast Neoplasms / pathology*
Diagnosis, Differential*
Epithelium / pathology*
Humans
Immunophenotyping / methods