There are often components of other histological types mixed in. Microscopically these cells are often arranged in a linear fashion. It can also invade many abdominal organs and mimic stomach, uterine or ovarian carcinomas. Overall the prognosis is similar to that of infiltrating ductal carcinoma. An unusual but poor prognosis type of breast carcinoma is inflammatory carcinoma.
Inflammatory carcinoma involves the skin and the lymphatics of the skin.
It is usually large, often taking up more than one quadrant of the breast and is very rapidly growing. With multi-modality treatment in recent years, the prognosis has improved somewhat. In summary, there are many different types of adenocarcinoma of the breast. Some of these types have clinical significance. The earlier proliferative breast lesions, both hyperplasia and in situ disease all present with increased risk of developing invasive breast cancer.