Secretory carcinoma of the breast in an elderly woman: report of a case.

We herein report a case of secretory carcinoma of the breast in a 73-year-old woman. Secretory carcinoma is an extremely rare tumor and demonstrates distinctive pathologic characteristics. This tumor frequently occurs in either children or adolescents, and thus has been called juvenile carcinoma. We encountered this rare tumor in an elderly woman. Aspiration biopsy cytology was performed twice, but the cytological diagnosis was not carcinoma. Such pathologic characteristics as mild atypia, the absence of hyperchromasia, and a minimal degree of pleomorphism in the tumor cells can thus lead to a cytological misdiagnosis. An excisional biopsy was performed and secretory carcinoma was finally diagnosed. Consequently, a modified radical mastectomy (Kodama's method) was performed 7 days later. We describe this very rare tumor's clinicopathologic characteristics.