Metastasis to the breast from medullary thyroid carcinoma

We report a case of metastatic MTC presented as palpable neck and breast nodules in a 39-year-old woman. Fine needle aspiration of breast nodules showed a cellular smear with relatively homogenous, poorly cohesive tumor cells in a relatively clean background. The tumor cells were round to oval, with hyperchromatic nuclei, abundant cytoplasm and plasmacytoid in appearance. A few amorphous materials, possibly amyloid, were also noted. The patient underwent radical thyroidectomy, cervical lymph node dissection and excision of breast nodules. The primary thyroid mass was typical of MTC but metastatic breast tumors showed more homogenous and smaller tumor cells. The cellular origin of the breast tumors was confirmed by their immunoreactivity for calcitonin, chromogranin, synaptophysin and TTF-1... MedWorm Sponsored Message: Find out how you can get your message across here by sponsoring this MedWorm news feed.