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Case Report Volume 17 Issue 4
The association of classic invasive lobular carcinoma of the breast with gastrointestinal malignancies, part I
László Tabár, Miklós Tarján, Peter B Dean
Department of Mammography, Falun Central Hospital, Sweden
Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Turku, Finland
Department of Clinical Pathology and Cytology, Falun Central Hospital, Sweden
Received: July 01, 2026 | Published: July 16, 2026
Citation: Tabár L, Dean PB, Tarján M. The association of classic invasive lobular carcinoma of the breast with gastrointestinal malignancies. J Cancer Prev Curr Res. 2026;17(4):109‒113. DOI: 10.15406/jcpcr.2026.17.00617
Abstract
Background: Classic invasive lobular carcinoma is one of the most poorly understood breast malignancies. Many features make it an outlier among other breast cancers. The characteristic physical examination finding is diffuse thickening rather than a focal tumour mass. Deformation can be extreme, including shrinkage of the breast. This malignancy is usually occult at mammography until it reaches the size of several centimetres. Breast ultrasound is more sensitive due to the excessive, newly formed fibrous connective tissue. The dissemination pattern is variable, and metastases may be found in unusual sites. The efficacy of treatment has not improved during the past decades despite the development of new therapeutic agents, with long-term patient survival remaining in the range of 60-70%. The long-held assumption that this malignancy arises from the epithelial cells of the breast lobules has hindered progress in our understanding of this complex disease. Case presentation : The chosen cases describe diffusely invasive lobular carcinoma associated with gastrointestinal malignancies that may be synchronous or asynchronous in random order of appearance. Patients with bilateral classic invasive lobular carcinoma are at risk of developing linitis plastica in the stomach, and correspondingly, patients with linitis plastica are at risk of developing classic invasive lobular carcinoma of the breast. Conclusion: Close cooperation among the organ-based cancer teams is necessary when bilateral classic invasive lobular carcinoma develops in the breasts, either synchronously or asynchronously, or when linitis plastica of the stomach is diagnosed. These patients should receive CDH1 gene testing, and cases testing positive should undergo annual surveillance using multimodal diagnostic methods. Most importantly, the mesenchymal pluripotential stem cell aspects of this breast disease, combined with cell culture results, should question the accepted assumption that it has a lobular epithelial origin.
Keywords: breast cancer, invasive lobular carcinoma, BCMO (breast cancer of mesenchymal pluripotent hybrid stem cell origin), linitis plastica, gastrointestinal cancer, gene damage, MET (mesenchymal-epithelial transition), CDH1 gene mutations
©2026 Tabár, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.