Clinical outcomes by histologic pattern of early-stage metaplastic breast cancer: A single-institution retrospective study.

PURPOSE

Metaplastic breast cancer (MpBC) is a rare, aggressive type of breast cancer composed of several histologic patterns. This study evaluated outcomes among the MpBC histologic patterns, which include spindle cell/sarcomatous, squamous, heterologous mesenchymal, and mixed.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

A retrospective chart review identified patients with early-stage MpBC diagnosed between January 1, 2010, and September 1, 2021. A matched control patient cohort with nonmetaplastic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) was selected. Associations between MpBC histologic patterns and disease characteristics were evaluated using chi-squared and Wilcoxon tests. Kaplan-Meier estimates and log rank tests assessed differences in recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS).

RESULTS

In the MpBC cohort (n = 106), histologic patterns included spindle cell/sarcomatous (34%), squamous (16%), heterologous mesenchymal (31%), mixed (18%), and other (1%). In patients with MpBC who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy (n = 32), residual cancer burden (RCB) was not found to be significantly different between the spindle cell/sarcomatous pattern versus other patterns (P = .81). In the entire MpBC cohort, patients with the spindle cell/sarcomatous pattern had inferior RFS (P = .02) and OS (P = .004) compared to patients with other patterns. There was no significant difference in RFS (P = .90) or OS (P = .90) between the MpBC and TNBC cohort.

CONCLUSION

RCB did not differ among the MpBC histologic patterns, but outcomes were inferior in patients with the spindle cell/sarcomatous pattern. Outcomes were also inferior in patients with MpBC receiving neoadjuvant versus adjuvant chemotherapy. Our study did not find a difference in outcomes between patients with MpBC versus nonmetaplastic TNBC. More investigation with larger sample sizes and biomarkers is warranted.